Donald Trump is threatening to end Iran’s civilization tonight, but how he does it, whether with nuclear bombs, limited strikes against infrastructure or ground troops, is still up in the air.
He could also always pull back, kick the can and claim a deal is in the works.
Still, the stakes could not be higher. No US President has ever made such audacious military threats in modern history.
Certainly none has threatened to obliterate a civilization or send it back to the ‘stone age.’
‘A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,’ Trump posted on social media Tuesday morning, ahead of his 8:00 pm ET deadline for Iran to strike a deal. ‘I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.’
Hours later he doubled down, telling Fox News, ‘If we get to that point there is going to be an attack like they have not seen.’
As the deadline looms and the President weighs his options with advisors, several paths lie open to him: announcing a deal or progress in negotiations; pushing back the deadline for a third time; launching limited military strikes; bombarding infrastructure such as power and water facilities; deploying ground troops; or deploying a nuclear weapon.
Two sources familiar with the military discussions, but are outside the administration, told the Daily Mail they are alarmed by the prospect of a nuclear strike on Iran. When the possibility was raised in a recent meeting, some Pentagon planners responded that ‘nothing is off the table.’
A third source and former diplomat who is familiar with Iran talks tells the Daily Mail that indeed ‘all options are on the table’ – further elaborated that there is no military rationale for a nuclear weapon in this instance.
Vice President JD Vance appeared to bolster the notion that the US could use its nuclear arsenal against Iran when speaking in Hungary on Tuesday.
‘They’ve got to know, we’ve got tools in our toolkit that we so far haven’t decided to use. 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.’
Though the White House later claimed on social media that nothing about Vance’s remarks ‘implies’ that nuclear weapons will be used.
European allies have also expressed dismay at how ‘erratic’ Trump’s behavior has been amid the conflict.
Still, the use of nuclear warheads to achieve US goals in Iran seems out of the realm, Iran and nuclear proliferation expert Joseph Rodgers told the Daily Mail.
‘Any actual battlefield use of nuclear weapons [is] highly unlikely,’ he said. ‘There’s not really any reason to use nuclear weapons in the conflict right now.’
‘There’s no reason to use nuclear weapons to accomplish the goal of taking out bridges or power plants. The very, very isolated utility that nuclear weapons could provide is in a target that’s really deeply buried.’
A nuclear strike would be the most extreme route – and the most certain to ensure Iranian civilisation ‘will die,’ as the President puts it. More realistic, perhaps, is a sustained campaign against Iranian infrastructure, which Trump has repeatedly and explicitly threatened.
‘We’re giving them tomorrow, eight o’clock ET, and after that, they’re going to have no bridges, they’re going to have no power plants — the stone ages.’
Trump first made that threat last Monday. Such strikes would fall hardest on Iranian civilians, not its military.
‘We will conclude our lovely “stay” in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet “touched,”‘ he wrote.
Even a limited strike on these sites could provoke Iran to retaliate against Gulf nations, unleashing far wider chaos and bloodshed. Hitting Iran’s desalination plants would destroy the drinking water supply for a portion of its population – and, critically, hand Iran a pretext to strike back at Gulf nations’ own water and energy infrastructure.
For Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain – each dependent on desalination for over 90 per cent of their water – that scenario would trigger a race to evacuate millions before mass dehydration sets in, several experts told the Daily Mail.
If Iran’s power grid is targeted, ‘the entire region and Saudi Arabia will fall into complete darkness with Iran’s retaliatory strikes,’ a senior Iranian source told Reuters on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts are fraying. Iran severed talks with the US on Tuesday, Middle Eastern officials told the Wall Street Journal, though they stressed a resolution before the 8:00 pm ET deadline remains possible.
The Human Rights Activists News Agency said at least 1,606 civilians, including 244 children, have been killed during the war with Iran as of last week.
The White House declined to comment on the record.
