Trump should do three things to win over ordinary Iranians – opinion

Victory comes not only with bombs and missiles but also from winning hearts and minds.

By Michael Rubin, Middle East Forum

It is inevitable that in war, ordinary citizens suffer. After more than four decades of clerical dictatorship, Iranians are accustomed to suffering.

As the war grinds on and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps gambles on American politics and seeks to outlast President Donald Trump, Trump should do three things to show the Iranian people that he stands with them.

First, he should dispatch U.S. hospital ships to the region. Many Iranians have been wounded. Some are civilians, but many others are members of Iran’s conscript army and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Trump should publicly announce the deployment of the USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort and offer free medical care to Iranians injured in the conflict, including Revolutionary Guardsmen.

Not only would this reinforce to the Iranian people that the regime, and not Iran itself, is the U.S. target, but it also would signal to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that if they stand down, ordinary rank-and-file members can expect mercy rather than retribution.

The quicker fissures develop in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and it collapses, the faster the regime will collapse.

Second, he should announce a new Iranian rial and display mockups of the new currency. The December 2026 protests erupted because of a bank failure, and the Tehran bazaar shuttered in protest of the regime’s financial mismanagement.

The reel is symbolic of this. At the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iranians used rial notes that ranged from ten rials to 10,000 rials; the exchange rate was roughly seventy rials to the U.S. dollar.

Under late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s management, the rial plummeted in value. To bypass the psychological impact of higher banknotes, the Central Bank began issuing “banknotes” in denominations of 500,000 rials and one million rials, which circulate as currency.

Even the one million rial notes are worth less than a dollar; to add insult to injury, Iranian financial papers regularly report seizures and confiscations of counterfeit bank checks.

The U.S. Bureau of Engraving should develop a new run of Iranian rial, with five or six zeros removed, featuring not Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s face or commemorations of the regime’s illicit nuclear program or, indeed, previous shahs’ visages, but rather, the cultural sites and figures that define Persian culture: the epic poet Ferdowsi, for example; Isfahan’s Si-o-Se Pol Bridge; Tehran’s iconic Burj-e Milad; or the ruins of Persepolis.

Doing so not only would suggest a better, more normal future for Iranians, but also would signal profound respect for millennia of Iranian culture.

Finally, the Persian New Year—Nowruz—rapidly approaches. Traditionally, U.S. presidents have greeted Iranians with a Nowruz statement or address.

Iranians welcomed this tradition, at least until President Barack Obama decided to legitimize their oppressors by speaking to the “Islamic Republic of Iran” rather than Iranians themselves.

When Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq, he forbade the celebration of Nowruz. In response, many Kurds would light tires on fire. Not only were they difficult to extinguish, but their smoke symbolized opposition.

Trump should suggest Iranians do the same thing as symbols of their opposition to the clerical regime.

As the war continues, it is essential that Trump not only outline his vision to the Iranian people but, if the United States has achieved complete air superiority, also consider airdropping at least a few symbolic Nowruz kits. He will not be able to supply 90 million Iranians, but it is the thought that counts.

Victory comes not only with bombs and missiles but also from winning hearts and minds.

The Pentagon developed the unfolding war plans over decades. Trump did not create them; he just did what Obama and President Joe Biden did not: He chose to employ them. No one likes being bombed, however.

Trump risks snatching defeat from the jaws of victory if he does not demonstrate to Iranians respect for their culture and hope for what the future holds.