Updated ,first published
Washington: US President Donald Trump issued a dark warning that a “whole civilisation will die tonight” as the hours ticked down to a deadline he has set for Iran to agree to a deal that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz or face punishing strikes.
The social media post, issued at 8am Tuesday (Washington time), is the latest escalation in rhetoric from the president ahead of what he said would be a four-hour destructive blitz on Iranian infrastructure such as power plants and bridges.
“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 Truth Social.
“However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily [sic] 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. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran.”
Trump’s latest missive came as both parties failed to make discernible progress towards a deal ahead of his 8pm Tuesday (10am Wednesday AEST) deadline, despite the president saying Iran was negotiating in good faith.
“We have a plan … where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night [US time],” he said at a Monday news conference.
“Every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again. It’ll happen over a period of four hours if we want it to … The entire country could be taken in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night.”
However, the Iranian regime has shown no signs of backing down, with officials urging “all young people, athletes, artists, students and university students and their professors” to form human chains around power plants to protect them, as the deadline drew closer.
“Power plants that are our national assets and capital, regardless of any taste or political viewpoint, belong to the future of Iran and to the Iranian youth,” said Alireza Rahimi, identified by Iranian state television as the secretary of the Supreme Council of Youth and Adolescents, in a video call issued in a newscast.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also said on X that 14 million Iranians, including himself, had volunteered to sacrifice their lives in the war.
Iran is home to 90 million people. Many remain angry at the government over its bloody crackdown on nationwide demonstrations and the figure of 14 million is likely aimed at trying to dissuade the promised American bombing campaign.
“I too have been, am, and will remain ready to give my life for Iran,” Pezeshkian wrote.
A growing chorus of international voices have called for restraint. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Tuesday (Australian time) that attacks targeting civilian and energy infrastructure “are barred by the rules of war, international law”.
“They would without doubt trigger a new phase of escalation, of reprisals, that would drag the region and the world economy into a vicious circle that would be very worrying and, most of all, very damaging to our own interests,” he said on France Info television.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon also urged Trump not to follow through. “The focus needs to be on not seeing this conflict expand any further,” he told Radio New Zealand.
“Any of those actions including bombing bridges and reservoirs and civilian infrastructure would be unacceptable.”
Trump said he was not bothered by accusations he would be committing war crimes by deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure. “I hope I don’t have to do it,” he said, while criticising a reporter from The New York Times for asking the question.
Meanwhile, airstrikes across Iran killed at least 15 people on Tuesday, while Iran fired on Israel and Saudi Arabia, prompting the temporary closure for several hours of the King Fahd Causeway, a bridge that links Saudi Arabia to the island kingdom of Bahrain.
The 25-kilometre bridge is the only connection by road for Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, to the Arabian Peninsula.
Iran also fired on Israel, with reports of incoming missiles in Tel Aviv and Eilat. More than 1900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, but the Iranian government has not updated that toll for days.
At least one attacker was killed and another seriously injured in an extended gun battle between police and assailants directly outside the building housing the Israeli consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday, according to media reports and Reuters video.
Reuters video showed police officers pulling out guns and taking cover as shots rang out for at least 10 minutes. One person was covered in blood.
Other footage obtained by Reuters showed an apparent attacker moving among parked white police and security buses and firing over several minutes with an automatic rifle and handgun.
A source with knowledge of the matter said there were no Israeli diplomats stationed in Turkey at present.
Israel stepped up its attacks by striking a key petrochemical plant in Iran’s massive South Pars natural gas field and killing two commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
For the first time, Trump suggested the US could help Iran rebuild after the war, and even said the US might exercise some control over the Strait of Hormuz – a crucial oil and shipping corridor – by charging tolls.
“I’d rather do that than let them have it. Why shouldn’t we? We’re the winner,” he said. “We won. They are militarily defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of, ‘We’re going to drop mines in the water’.”
Trump said the Iranian people were begging the US to keep bombing Iran because they wanted to be rid of the oppressive theocratic regime in Tehran – even if it meant striking civilian infrastructure.
“They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom,” he said. “They’re saying, ‘Please come back, come back, come back’. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It’s a violent, horrible world … They want us to keep bombing.”
However, there were several mixed messages from the president about whether he trusted the Iranian leaders with which the US is negotiating, and how far he was willing to go in any further military operations in Iran.
Trump called the Iranian leadership “disturbed people” who wanted a nuclear weapon – just a day after he described them as “crazy bastards” in a provocative social media post.
But he also said they were smarter, sharper and far less radical than previous iterations of the Islamic Republic leaders, and he believed they were negotiating in good faith.
Earlier, Trump said that while he would like to launch a mission to seize the country’s oil, Americans “unfortunately” wanted their troops to come home.
“If it were up to me, I’d like to keep the oil, I just don’t think the people of the United States would really understand,” he told reporters during a White House Easter function.
“They support what we’re doing, but they would like to see it end, and [our troops] come back.”
At his news conference, Trump was asked about the apparent contradiction between his threats to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age” and his message that the war was winding down.
“Which is it?” a reporter asked. Trump replied: “I can’t tell you – I don’t know. It depends on what they [the Iranians] do. This is a critical period.”
The president reiterated that he felt betrayed by American allies who failed to assist in the war, including Australia, Japan and South Korea, as well as NATO members.
“You know who else didn’t help us? South Korea didn’t help us. You know who else didn’t help us? Australia didn’t help us. You know who else didn’t help us? Japan,” he said.
Trump asserted that America’s European allies stayed out of the war because of simmering tensions over his demand to take over the Denmark-controlled territory of Greenland.
“We want Greenland. They don’t want to give it to us, and I said, ‘Bye-bye’,” he said, before walking offstage.
With AP, Reuters
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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