By Isabella McHugh
Staff Writer
President Donald Trump invoked a grave threat that a whole civilization would die last Tuesday night, pointing to Iran, according to Politico.
Impudent posts aren’t foreign to the president. In Trump’s 2026 Easter message he wrote, “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day,” adding “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in hell,” TNR reported.
Only days later on April 7, Trump took to Truth Social and wrote, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Politico reported.
If Iran didn’t agree to a deal, he threatened strikes that could destroy bridges and energy targets, potentially demolishing civilian infrastructure. Politico wrote that such an act could be named a war crime, if it was done deliberately.
Many people also criticized his imagined tactics for the same reason, according to CNN.
However, Trump has been making similar such demands in recent weeks which he suspended. Nevertheless, on April 7, United States strikes were reported to have been targeted close to infrastructure sites. U.S. forces struck areas on Kharg Island which is a central area for oil. These strikes did not actually hit any of the oil facilities, CNN reported.
The U.S. and Iran reached an agreement mere hours before Trump’s cutoff point. The president claimed that Iran offered “a workable basis on which to negotiate,” PBS also reported.
A ceasefire resulted and was taken into immediate effect. Trump said that both the U.S. and Israel would delay bombing Iran for two weeks, according to NPR.
Iran agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz during this period. This is something Trump threatened to do as one of his demands, PBS reported.
Iran had previously closed the strait as a result of U.S. strikes targeted at the country. The Strait makes up for about 20% of the world’s oil, according to Politico.
Trump persisted with his disparagement on April 9, saying that he was “very optimistic” about having a peace deal with Iran as Vice President JD Vance prepared for travel to Pakistan with the hopes of an ending to the conflict, NBC reported.
The Iranian leaders “talk much differently when you’re at a meeting than they do to the press. They’re much more reasonable,” Trump said to NBC in a phone interview. “They’re agreeing to all the things that they have to agree to. Remember, they’ve been conquered. They have no military.”
Pakistan delivered the official proposal to the U.S. Iranian officials reported in an article from NPR. The officials cautioned that any change to their agreement could result in violence.
“Our hands are on the trigger, and the moment the enemy makes the slightest mistake, it will be met with full force," said the Supreme National Security Council in the same article.
In the waking hours of this brand new peace agreement, dispute arose. Officials argued over who would be given reprieve from the strikes, according to NPR.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office made a statement saying that they support the two-week ceasefire, however, the agreement did not extend to Lebanon, according to NPR. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said otherwise.
Senator Chris Murphy told TNR that Trump’s purpose was to inflict harm on civilians. Edward Wong of The New York Times reached out to the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command inquired if they would consciously target civilian sites, and he received no response.
“This is a really perilous moment,” Murphy told TNR. “If he is prepared to give an order to strike thousands of bridges and power plants, which will result in thousands of innocent Iranians dying, everybody in that chain of command has to think hard about whether they want to be part of the execution of that order.”
