Dr. Mostafa Zamanian, Senior Advisor to the Sharif Governance Institute, in his strategic analysis of the recent developments in the Iran-Israel war, referring to the US project to create a narrative about the future of Iran, writes:
In 2018, at the same time as sanctions against the Iranian economy were being tightened, Donald Trump tweeted in which he mentioned the phrase “Iran is great” for the first time: “The Iranian people are a great people, Iran … has the chance to become a great country.” Although his slogan, “Make Iran Great Again” or MIGA for short, did not receive the attention expected at the height of Iran’s internal unrest, seven years later, in 2025, during Trump’s trip to Riyadh, on his expensive future-selling tour of the region, he repeated the same concept with greater clarity. He emphasized to the Arab leaders of the region: “We can build a glorious future for you… Iran is mired in a quagmire today, but with our policies it can return to its past greatness.” This time, MIGA was presented in a more dangerous form: offering to “build the future” to Arab countries in exchange for an anti-Iranian alliance, and reiterating the same promise to Iran conditional on submission to Washington’s demands. The hidden message of this strategy was: “Iran’s greatness” is a commodity that is only available in the American store, and its price is the abandonment of national sovereignty.
Until just a few days ago, at the height of the war between Iran and the Israeli regime (2025), in a tweet, repeating the MIGA project, he called the condition for the return of greatness to Iran a change of regime in Iran. Leaving aside the dimensions of the enemy’s psychological warfare, with a historical review, the truth of the “revival of Iran’s greatness” project becomes more apparent. Whereas in World War I (1914) and the occupation of Iran by Russia and England, despite its neutrality, the promise of maintaining territorial integrity (the 1919 Treaty) was presented with the slogan “rebuilding Iran”. In World War II (1941), the Allies launched a military occupation of Iran with the justification of protecting Iran. In fact, behind this old Western strategy, which is always presented in a deceptive and compassionate manner, lie three strategic goals: 1. Defeating the social capital of the regime by reminding people of its livelihood problems; 2. Winning over public opinion by instilling America’s role as a savior; 3. Realizing the colonial idea and changing the regime with a minimum of military conflict. As John Bolton admits: “Our goal was not to change behavior, but to change the regime. MIGA was the rope with which we wanted the Iranian people to separate themselves from the government.”
