US President Donald Trump has threatened that “a whole civilisation will die tonight”, “never to be brought back again” unless Iran reaches a deal to re-open the Strait of Hormuz.
“I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” he said today, Tuesday. “However, now that we have complete and total regime change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen”, before the deadline of 8pm EDT today.
The conflict in the Middle East continues to rage after the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on 28 February, killing the Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the country. Thousands have died since, international observers and human rights groups say – including 168 people when a girl’s school was bombed in Iran.
Earlier, in a statement, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that it has shown “considerable restraint” to this point and “exercised care in selecting targets for retaliation” against the US and its partners in the region.
“From this point forward, all such considerations will be set aside,” it said.
The IRGC said if the US military “crosses red lines, our response will go beyond the region” – adding that regional oil and gas supplies would be disrupted for years.
BBC reports that this is the latest in a series of deadline issues by the U.S President in the war in Iran.
Deadline 1: On 21 March, Trump said he would “hit and obliterate” power plants, “starting with the biggest ones first”, if Iran didn’t reopen the waterway within 48 hours
Deadline 2: Two days later, he said there had been “very good and productive conversations” between the countries and postponed strikes against energy infrastructure for five days
Deadline 3: On 27 March, Trump said he would postpone attacking energy plants for 10 days, “as per [an] Iranian government request”, bringing the deadline to 6 April
48-hour warning: On Friday, with the 6 April deadline looming, he warned that Iran had “48 hours” before he unleashed “all hell”
Expletive-laden threat: In a Sunday post peppered with expletives, Trump reiterated this threat, saying that “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day” – in a later post he said “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!”
Latest threat: On Tuesday, Trump shared a message on TruthSocial that said “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will”.
In the US, the Democratic Majority for Israel said that “Trump’s threat to wipe out a “whole civilization” runs counter to core American values. We don’t believe in collective punishment, and targeting civilian infrastructure would harm the Iranian people, not advance U.S. interests or security.”
The US and Israel have targeted Kharg Island, where a major oil terminal is considered essential to Iran’s economy. The oil and gas crisis triggered by the blockade of the strait of Hormuz is “more serious than the ones in 1973, 1979 and 2022 together”, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said today.