Trump demands ‘unconditional surrender’ from Iran and trots out MAGA-like acronym for his vision of post-war landscape
President Donald Trump on Friday said the U.S. would accept no negotiated settlement with Iran short of “unconditional surrender” and repeated his demand for input into Tehran’s choice of a new supreme leader nearly a week into the joint American-Israeli bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic.
Writing on Truth Social, Trump wrote there would be “no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” and for the selection of a “GREAT [and] ACCEPTABLE” leader or leaders to replace Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by an Israeli bomb strike at the outset of the nearly week-old war.
The president added that once those conditions were met, the U.S. and “many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners” would “work tirelessly” to reconstruct Iran and its’ economy by bringing it “back from the brink of destruction” and “making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.”
“IRAN WILL HAVE A GREAT FUTURE. “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!).” Thank you for your attention to this matter!” he said, employing a version of his “Make America Great Again” slogan that has also been adopted by some of his supporters, including longtime Iran hawk and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.
Trump’s ultimatum to Tehran appeared to deliberately echo the demand made to Imperial Japan by the United States, the United Kingdom and China at the July 1945 Potsdam Conference in a declaration calling on Tokyo to “proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action.”
It warned that Japan would face “prompt and utter destruction” if it did not comply with the allies’ demands.
The president’s social media post comes less than a day after he told reporters the U.S. and Israeli militaries have continued to “totally demolish the enemy far ahead of schedule and at levels that people have never seen before” after six days of an air campaign that administration officials have said could last weeks or months if not longer.
He also said on Thursday that he must have a role in choosing Iran’s next leader to succeed Khamenei, whose successor has yet to be chosen by a group of Islamic clerics known as the Assembly of Experts. The current frontrunner for the post is Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the late supreme leader.
The younger Khamanei, 48, is considered a hardline cleric in the mold of his father and has deep ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
But in an interview with Axios, Trump dismissed him as a “lightweight” and called him “unacceptable,” telling the outlet he and his administration want “someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran” to be appointed along the lines of how Venezuela’s government quickly moved to install Vice President Delcy Rodriguez with his input after American forces captured former president Nicolas Maduro in a brazen exfiltration operation this past January.
“They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodriguez] in Venezuela,” Trump said.
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