Newsman: President Donald Trump threatened the death of an entire civilization in a Tuesday morning post on Truth Social, the latest violent warning for the Iranian regime ahead of an 8 p.m. deadline for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
Tuesday night may well be “one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” he wrote. “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?”
The president’s increasingly dire warnings come after he has suggested strikes would hit bridges, desalination plants and energy targets — which could include civilian infrastructure that, if attacked deliberately, could constitute a war crime.
Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz — a critical waterway for the transit of 20 percent of the world’s oil — soon after the U.S. began to strike the country in a joint operation with Israel in February.
The president is now conditioning an end to the war on the reopening of the strait. “Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!” he wrote last week on social media.
Trump has also skewered U.S. allies — including NATO — for balking at his calls to help reopen the strait. But he’s trained the bulk of his threats at Tehran.
“We have a plan because of the power of our military where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again,” Trump said on Monday.
Also on Monday, the president told reporters that negotiations between U.S. and Iranian interlocutors were ongoing “in good faith.” Reopening the strait, he said, is a “very big priority.”
Vice President Vance told reporters in Hungary on Tuesday that the strikes did not represent a change in strategy for the U.S. because they were focusing exclusively on military targets.
“The president’s deadline … has been followed by us and everybody else,” he said. “And he said very clearly, we’re not going to strike energy and infrastructure targets until the Iranians either make a proposal that we can get behind or don’t make a proposal. But he’s given them until Tuesday, at eight o’clock.”
