Photo: Adobe Stock | Op-ed by Summer Lane
With hours to go before President Trump’s deadline on Iran expires, the Iranian people are reportedly forming human chains around civilian infrastructure in a desperate bid to stop U.S. forces from destroying power plants and key bridges.
Footage emerged on social media on Tuesday of alleged demonstrations, which some claim may even include children, though this has not been confirmed.
However, Iranian state media footage did indeed show Iranian officials calling on youth to shield critical infrastructure on Tuesday, in light of President Trump’s Easter Sunday promise to bomb bridges and power plants.
In U.S. military history, striking civilian infrastructure is typically avoided. Generally, military forces may utilize a “dual-use” targeting method. This means that sites like electrical plants and key bridges may be targeted, as these points may be used “dually” by both military and civilian entities.
This is almost certainly the category of targets that President Trump has threatened to hit. However, the conflict has intensified as the president’s statements have broadened
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” the president wrote on Sunday. “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
And on Tuesday – the deadline the president placed on Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz – he threatened to wipe out the “whole civilization” of Persia.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” President Trump said on Truth Social. “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?”
Such an ominous statement is considerably more serious than anything President Trump has ever threatened before.
During his first term, he dealt publicly with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. The escalating insults between the two leaders led many to fear a nuclear exchange (President Trump famously called Kim a “Rocket Man,” and Kim called the president a “dotard”), but President Trump was able to deftly navigate the situation and solidify a reasonable friendship with North Korea.
Could that same possibility be on the horizon with Iran? President Trump is well-known for using his social media platforms to stir up deflection or even distraction. His latest Truth Social statements have been incredibly harsh and have overbroadly threatened Iran in its entirety. Is this simply a negotiating tactic? A bluff? A bold and aggressive strategy to force the Strait of Hormuz to reopen?
“[Iran’s] got to know, we’ve got tools in our toolkit that we so far haven’t decided to use,” Vice President J.D. Vance said on Tuesday. “The President of the United States can decide to use them, and he will decide to use them if the Iranians don’t change their course of conduct.”
What makes this conflict difficult to follow at times is the reality that Americans have never experienced wartime under President Trump’s leadership. He has historically been a peacetime president, and so, it’s hard to analyze how his negotiating tactics and strategies are being applied in real-time as bombs are being dropped.
In his most famous book, The Art of the Deal, President Trump described the style of his negotiations, which closely aligns with his methodology of threatening the Iranian regime:
“The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead. The best thing you can do is deal from strength, and leverage is the biggest strength you can have. Leverage is having something the other guy wants. Or better yet, needs. Or best of all, simply can’t do without. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case, which is why leverage often requires imagination, and salesmanship. In other words, you have to convince the other guy it’s in his interest to make the deal.”
Applying this perspective to the U.S. operation against Iran is helpful: Iran needs its internal infrastructure and oil manufacturing facilities as badly as the world – and the U.S. – need the Strait of Hormuz to reopen.
Who has more leverage? Who has more verifiable strength? Can President Trump successfully convince Iran that making a deal with the U.S. is in their best interest? What does the United States really need in this conflict, and how can we disengage from the war as quickly as possible, without crossing any red lines?
As media talking heads chatter about the escalating threats of violence from the White House, it’s only fair to wonder how far the U.S. should go in pursuit of its goals in Iran.
On Monday, during the White House Easter Egg Roll, a reporter bluntly asked President Trump to explain why threatening to blow up power plants and bridges was “not” an alleged war crime.
“Because they’ve killed 45,000 people in the last month, more than that,” President Trump said of the Iranian regime. “Could be as much as 60. They killed protestors. They’re animals, and we have to stop them, and we can’t let them have a nuclear weapon. It’s very simple.”
If the U.S. has indeed obliterated Iranian military capabilities, as the Trump administration has projected, then why is America still engaged in the region? The answer is obvious: the Strait of Hormuz must be reopened, and so far this has proven difficult, hence the ongoing threats.
The situation in the Middle East is critical, and it’s dangerous. It remains to be seen what the outcome of President Trump’s threats against Iran will amount to if a ceasefire deal is not reached. The nation, and the world, can only pray for President Trump to have wisdom and clarity in this rapidly escalating situation, and to pray that peace is the end result.
