Donald Trump issued his most severe warning yet to Iran on Tuesday morning. He posted on Truth Social that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again”. This is hours before his self-imposed 8 p.m. ET deadline for the country to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face devastating strikes on its infrastructure.
In the same post, Trump called the moment “one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world,” predicting that decades of what he described as extortion and corruption would finally end. He left the door slightly open for a resolution, writing that if Iran agreed to “Complete and Total Regime Change,” then “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen.” Still, he added bluntly: “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
According to NBC News, the 8 p.m. deadline centers on the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway that handles roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply. Iran closed the Strait in February following a joint U.S.-Israeli military operation that began with American strikes on the country. The closure has sent energy prices soaring globally.
The head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, warned that the current oil and gas crisis is “more serious than the ones in 1973, 1979 and 2002 together.” And many are saying that the world has never experienced a supply disruption of this scale.
Trump has warned Iran repeatedly in recent days, threatening a 48-hour ultimatum just days earlier, before pushing the timeline to Tuesday. By Sunday, his rhetoric had grown even sharper in an expletive-filled Truth Social post. “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F*****in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” Trump wrote, later specifying 8 p.m. Tuesday as the deadline.
U.S. strikes Kharg Island overnight
The United States struck military targets on Kharg Island overnight, according to a U.S. official. These strikes targeted some of the same military targets hit in March, though the official stressed they did not target the island’s oil infrastructure. Kharg Island is the primary terminal, handling roughly 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports.
Strikes were also reported on multiple bridges across Iran, including a railway bridge in Kashan in Isfahan province, where two people were killed and three others injured, according to state media. Attacks were also reported on the Tabriz-Zanjan freeway in the northwest and a railway in Karaj in the north.
Trump has publicly boasted that Iran’s military has been “obliterated,” but has also acknowledged that Tehran still controls traffic flow through the strait, giving Iran significant leverage in the standoff. At a White House press conference on Monday, he warned that “the entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” and claimed the U.S. military had a plan to decimate every bridge in Iran by midnight Tuesday.
When asked about possible war crimes, since a UN spokesperson has said international law bars attacking civilian infrastructure, Trump said he was “not at all” concerned. “You know what’s a war crime? Having a nuclear weapon,” he said.
The escalation has drawn sharp domestic criticism as well. Chuck Schumer blasted Trump for his increasingly aggressive rhetoric about Iran, calling out the president’s Easter weekend posts as the language of someone acting without restraint. As the 8 p.m. deadline approaches, all eyes are on whether Iran will respond or whether Trump will shift the timeline yet again.
