President Donald Trump has suggested that the United States will destroy Iran’s “civilization” if it does not open the Strait of Hormuz and abide by its terms.
President Trump shared a social media post threatening to irreversibly wipe out Iran, about 12 hours before a Tuesday night deadline he set for Iranian authorities.
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“An entire civilization will perish tonight and never return. I don’t want it to happen, but it probably will,” Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social.
Iran is the heir to the millennia-old Persian civilization, one of the most influential civilizations in human history.
For more than two weeks, the US president has threatened to order the destruction of Iranian civilian infrastructure, including bridges and power plants, if his demands are not met.
His latest post on Tuesday reflects the escalating angry rhetoric he has been deploying since the US and Israel began their war against Iran on February 28th.
Legal experts said targeting civilian infrastructure was a war crime.
Yasmin Taeb, legislative and political director of the advocacy group M-Power Change Action Fund, said of Trump’s threat: “It’s horrifying. It’s pure evil. It’s disqualifying.”
“Those are the words of a deranged, unstable lunatic.”
Taib called for a “stronger response” from U.S. lawmakers and the international community to President Trump’s statements and policies.
Democrats call for an end to the war
Several Democratic members of Congress on Tuesday condemned President Trump’s threats and called for an end to the war.
Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer called Trump “extremely sick” after the president’s post on Tuesday.
“Each Republican who refuses to join us in voting against this senseless war, whatever it is, bears full responsibility for its consequences,” the senator wrote of X.
Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat, called on Trump’s Republican colleagues to “put patriotic duty above party and stop this madness.”
“Congress must immediately end this reckless war of choice in Iran before Donald Trump plunges us into World War III,” Jeffries said in a social media post.
Last month, Congress failed to pass a resolution curbing President Trump’s authority to attack Iran.
The U.S. president has not received authorization from lawmakers to launch military action against Iran, which critics say violates the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress the power to declare war.
On Tuesday, Rep. Rashida Tlaib said President Trump is unfit for office and should invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.
“After bombing the school and massacring the girls, war criminals in the White House are threatening genocide,” Tlaib said in a social media post, referring to the attack on Minab school in southern Iran that killed more than 170 people.
Congressman Jim McGovern stressed that the U.S. military is required not to follow “illegal orders.”
“This is evil. The President of the United States’ genocidal threats to commit war crimes are illegal under federal and international law,” McGovern said.
Despite growing opposition to the war on the Democratic side, opposition to Trump remains weak within the Republican Party.
On Tuesday, Rep. Mike Lawler downplayed President Trump’s threat to wipe out Iranian civilization, saying the president would only target the country’s civilian infrastructure.
“It’s their energy infrastructure, it’s their civilian infrastructure, including roads and bridges. It would cripple the Iranian regime and certainly the Iranian economy,” Lawler told CNN.
The Republican said Trump was acting “within his legal authority to wage this war” as commander in chief of the U.S. military.
deadline
The US president on Tuesday set 8pm (midnight Japan time) in Washington, DC, as the “final” deadline for Iran.
On the first day of the war, the United States and Israel killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several other government officials.
The attack killed more than 2,000 people and damaged schools, homes, and medical facilities.
Despite the losses, Tehran’s governing system appears to remain aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a wing of Iran’s military designated a “terrorist” group in the United States, which is spearheading the war effort.
There have been no large-scale defections or anti-government protests in Iran since the start of the war, and Khamenei was replaced by his son Mojtaba.
Iran retaliated with rocket and drone attacks against Israeli and U.S. assets across the Middle East.
Iranian forces have also targeted civilian and energy infrastructure in the Gulf region, closing the Strait of Hormuz to most shipping and driving up energy prices.
Still, President Trump maintains that he has achieved “regime change” in Iran and that the United States has “won” the war.
Despite his dramatic threats, President Trump on Tuesday left the door open to a diplomatic solution, saying “something revolutionaryly great could happen.”
“Tonight we learn one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death are finally over. God bless the great people of Iran!” Trump wrote.
Iranian officials remain defiant, threatening similar military action in the region and beyond if the United States escalates.
