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We Got This Covered
We Got This Covered
Fred Onyango

‘Make Iran Great Again’: Trump says his new goal in the war is to make Iran ‘economically better’ as U.S. unemployment rises

The war in Iran is one of the most bumbled operations in US history. Not even top members of the Donald Trump administration can define what the goal here is, much less why it even started. Now the POTUS himself has taken to Truth Social to declare that his primary goal is to “Make Iran Great Again” should they unconditionally surrender.

This war is frustrating on multiple levels. As people make memes online about “monitoring the situation,” and the White House joins in with memes about video games, you’ll notice journalists and veterans are furious. People are dying and nobody knows why President Trump started this war — not even other world leaders like UK and Spanish Prime Ministers Keir Starmer and Pedro Sánchez.

So far, Secretary Marco Rubio has claimed he started this war because he knew Israel was going to start it if the US didn’t. Then Trump said he actually pushed Israel for the war. Then the White House press secretary said that Trump started the war based on a “fact-based” feeling he had. The confusion doesn’t stop with the desired results either. First it was regime change, and now Trump wants to “improve” the Iranian economy. It’s unclear how an alleged strike on a school in Tehran would help him achieve that, but here we are.

Somewhat, the confusion is increasingly the point. As you dig deeper into the Trump administration’s motivations, you realize that they started with the strikes — just like they did in the Caribbean and with Venezuela — and are winging the rest, hoping for the best. And now that Iran has refused to surrender immediately, Trump has gone back to screeching at allies for needing an actual plan and reason to join him. The same allies he called “weak” throughout 2025, the same allies he had tariffs on until the courts stepped in.

Trump is calculated, however. One of the biggest things he’s always had working for him is how his biggest critics underestimate his calculated nature until he surprises them with even more mess. Trump is showering the news with as many contradictory statements as he possibly can until Americans can’t even tell what’s up and what’s down. And the fact that he has increasingly been able to help David Ellison build a media empire that will shield him, while already having strong ties with Elon Musk and the Rupert Murdoch family, means the mainstream media left to actually push back on his claims will shrink to the reserves of society.

The fact remains that as Trump pushes to somehow improve the Iranian economy through missiles, 12 million Americans still struggle to access SNAP benefits. According to CNN, in February alone rose to 92,000 Americans lost jobs — and that’s not even to mention how AI is making it harder for people to get entry-level jobs.

Trump is trying to woo people to go to the streets in Iran and overthrow the government. That much is clear. That’s the target of his post. It reeks of desperation. But it’s pretty hard to convince Iranians that you’re on their side when all they see every day are your other posts threatening their lives. The administration has tried bullying, bloodshed, and threats — all these manners of aggression have not worked. Perhaps it’s finally time to attempt peace.

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