United States President Donald Trump issued his most extreme public threat yet against Iran on Tuesday morning, warning that an entire civilisation could be destroyed before midnight as a final deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz drew within hours.
In a post on his Truth Social platform just after 8 a.m. in Washington, Trump wrote: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”
Trump has set 8 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday as the final deadline for Iran to agree to a deal that includes fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas ordinarily passes. He has threatened to destroy all of Iran’s power plants and bridges if Tehran does not comply.
Even ahead of the deadline, airstrikes hit two bridges and a train station in Iran on Tuesday, and the United States struck military targets on the Iranian oil hub of Kharg Island for the second time. Iranian officials urged young people to form human chains to protect the country’s power plants.
Human rights expert Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Trump was openly threatening collective punishment, targeting not the Iranian military but the Iranian people, and noted that collective punishment of civilians during armed conflict violates the Fourth Geneva Convention. “Attacking civilians is a war crime. So is making threats with the aim of terrorizing the civilian population,” Roth told NBC News.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the Trump administration that attacking civilian infrastructure in Iran is prohibited under international law, with his spokesman saying a court would ultimately determine whether any such attacks amount to war crimes.
Reached for comment on what the president meant and whether the phrase “whole civilization” signified that the United States would target civilian areas, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said only, “refer to the TRUTH.”
The current oil and gas crisis triggered by Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is described by Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), as more serious than the disruptions of 1973, 1979, and 2002 combined, saying the world has never experienced a disruption to energy supply of such magnitude. United States gas prices have soared to a national average of $4.14 a gallon, a rise of nearly 39 percent since the war began at the end of February, while crude oil prices have surged beyond $100 per barrel.
Iranian officials remained defiant on Tuesday. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) called Trump’s threats baseless and warned that any retaliatory response to attacks on civilian facilities would be carried out on a far wider scale.
Diplomatic efforts were underway to avert a major escalation, with Trump considering among other proposals a Pakistani plan for a 45-day ceasefire to allow the strait to reopen. However, senior American negotiators cited by the Wall Street Journal said chances of a deal before the evening deadline were slim.
The war between the United States, Israel, and Iran entered its sixth week on Tuesday. The conflict has killed more than 2,000 people and struck schools, residential buildings, and medical facilities.
