On The Eve Of Destruction? Clock Ticks Down On Trump’s Iran Deadline (Updated)
After Iran rejected the idea of a 45-day ceasefire and said it wanted a permanent end to the conflict, the countdown continues to see whether Tehran bows to U.S. pressure and reopens the Strait of Hormuz. “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” U.S. President Donald Trump declared today. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
We also continue to update our coverage on the recovery of a U.S. Air Force F-15E Weapon Systems Officer (WSO) in this separate story.
Last night, President Trump had threatened that if Tehran did not meet his deadline of 8:00 pm ET tonight, “every bridge in Iran will be decimated” by midnight ET on Wednesday and “every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again.”
In the face of repeated questions about whether such a wave of attacks would constitute a war crime, Trump said he was “not at all” concerned about that possibility. “You know what’s a war crime? Having a nuclear weapon,” he said.
Today, Trump told Fox News that he was pessimistic about negotiations with Iran making any progress and expected to move forward with the war plans he has outlined.
According to Iranian state television, “all diplomatic channels and indirect talks with the United States have been frozen” in response to these latest threats from Trump.
Speaking today, U.S. Vice President JD Vance claimed that the military objectives of the war have been completed and that the conclusion of the conflict will now depend on the Iranians.
At the same time, there have been conflicting reports about ongoing efforts to reach some sort of an agreement between the two parties.
With Trump’s deadline fast approaching, the two sides were engaged in urgent, last-minute discussions, according to Pakistani officials, who are serving as intermediaries for indirect negotiations between the United States and Iran.
Iran’s ambassador in Islamabad, Reza Amiri Moghadam, wrote on X: “Pakistan positive and productive endeavours in Good Will and Good Office to stop the war is approaching a critical, sensitive stage … Stay Tuned for more.”
As well as Pakistani diplomats, officials from Egypt and Turkey are also working to narrow the significant divide between the positions of Tehran and Washington.
It’s unclear if these last ditch efforts are still underway or if Iran cut off all talks as it claims to have done.
Trump said on Monday that Iran’s latest proposal, which consists of a 10-point plan, showed some progress but was “not good enough” for him.
Meanwhile, Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, the head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, told the Associated Press: “We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again.”
Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency reiterated that Tehran’s demands included “an end to conflicts in the region, a protocol for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, reconstruction, and the lifting of sanctions.”
The New York Times, citing two unnamed senior Iranian officials, reported that Tehran was also seeking assurances against future attacks and an end to Israeli strikes on its ally Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, something that Israel is extremely unlikely to yield to.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned today that it would “deprive the United States and its allies of the region’s oil and gas for years,” if Trump follows through with his threats to strike civilian infrastructure.
The IRGC also said that “Regional U.S. allies also need to know that, until today, Tehran has shown considerable restraint while taking certain restrictions on selecting retaliatory targets into account, but all these restrictions have now been lifted.”
The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is also pushing a defiant line. On X, he wrote:
“Over 14 million proud Iranians have, up to this moment, declared their readiness to sacrifice their lives in defense of Iran. I too have been, am, and will be a sacrificer for Iran.”
A growing divide within Iran’s leadership, meanwhile, seems to have erupted into an unusually intense clash, with President Pezeshkian reportedly accusing senior IRGC commanders of acting independently in ways that have undermined ceasefire efforts and driven the country closer to catastrophe.
As the countdown to the deadline continues, Iranian citizens appear to have gathered on the White Bridge in Ahvaz, forming a human chain to protect key infrastructure in symbolic defiance of the U.S.-Israel threats.
UPDATES:
UPDATE: 3:45 PM EDT—
Citing two U.S. officials, NBC News reports that the Pentagon has drawn up options for Trump that include targets that are used for both military and civilian purposes. This would help get around the fact that deliberately attacking civilian infrastructure indiscriminately would violate international law and could be prosecuted as a war crime.
NBC News reports: “Targeting infrastructure that is considered ‘dual use’ could allow the administration to argue the United States is hitting military targets and avoid the technical definition of a war crime.”
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has asked Donald Trump to extend to a deadline he imposed on Iran to end its blockade of Gulf oil by two weeks.
In a post on X, Sharif said: “Diplomatic efforts for peaceful settlement of the ongoing war in the Middle East are progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully with the potential to lead to substantive results in near future.
“To allow diplomacy to run its course, I earnestly request President Trump to extend the deadline for two weeks. Pakistan, in all sincerity, requests the Iranian brothers to open strait of Hormuz for a corresponding period of two weeks as a goodwill gesture.”
UPDATE: 3:35 PM EDT—
The Kuwaiti Ministry of Interior is urging all of its residents to stay home and avoid going out “except in cases of extreme necessity,” from midnight until tomorrow at 6 a.m. local time.
“This precautionary measure is taken to ensure everyone’s safety, enhance preventative measures, and enable security forces to perform their duties with high efficiency,” the ministry said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government has urged American citizens to reconsider traveling to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj pilgrimage, citing Iranian missile and drone strikes that continue to threaten the region. Hajj takes place on May 24 this year.
If the U.S. military does attack power plants, as Trump has threatened, Iranian state media says that Tehran will target oil infrastructure across the Gulf, including the Saudi port of Yanbu, ARAMCO oil facilities, and the Fujairah oil pipeline.
UPDATE: 3:25 PM EDT—
The U.K. Royal Navy destroyer HMS Dragon, sent to the eastern Mediterranean to beef up British defensive capabilities there, has reportedly been forced to return to port due to problems with its freshwater supply. As TWZ noted at the time of the deployment, the Type 45 vessels have not been without problems:
More generally, there have long been questions about the availability of the Type 45s, despite their undoubted capabilities. These six vessels are still very modern, but they have spent a notably long time in maintenance. Typically, only two are actually available to deploy at any given time. With one of the warships normally earmarked for the North Atlantic and Russia, and another needed to escort one of the U.K. aircraft carriers when that is at sea, there is very little capacity left to play with.
UPDATE: 1:13 PM EDT—
Axios is reporting that there has been meaningful progress in negotiations to reach a ceasefire deal, but getting it done by tonight is still a reach.
Trump could extend the deadline again, although there are likely many pieces in motion already for executing whatever massive strikes they have planned for tonight.
Meanwhile, AFP reports that the White House denies it is going to use nuclear weapons on Iran, so there’s that!
UPDATE: 12:00 PM EDT—
In the meantime, U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran are ongoing, while Iran has again responded with missile fire on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors.
Among the reported targets of U.S. strikes is Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf. A U.S. official told NBC News that the U.S. military struck dozens of military targets on the island overnight. Kharg Island, which handles around 90 percent of Iranian oil exports, has long been high on the list of targets for both Israel and the United States, but reports indicate that, on this occasion, no oil infrastructure was targeted.
“The American-Zionist enemy has carried out several attacks on Kharg Island, and several explosions have been heard there,” Iran’s Mehr news agency reported.
As you can read about here, there has long been speculation that the U.S. military could invade the strategically vital Kharg Island.
According to the Iranian Red Crescent, the United States and Israel are already striking various civilian targets in Iran, with the organization reporting 17 such targets hit on Tuesday morning.
In a statement posted on X, the Iranian Red Crescent said that there is no justification for attacking defenseless civilians, and to do so was a war crime.
A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Associated Press that international law bars the attacking of infrastructure such as bridges and power plants, as Trump has threatened. “Even if specific civilian infrastructure were to qualify as a military objective,” Stephane Dujarric said, an attack would still be prohibited if it risks “excessive incidental civilian harm.”
For its part, Israel has leveled a threat against Iran’s entire rail network, with reports that attacks against this infrastructure have already begun.
The Israeli Air Force has bombed around 10 key rail sections and bridges in Iran, according to reports from Israel, in a campaign that has been presented as part of an effort to prevent Iran from moving weapon systems.
Beyond the primary logistics railways provide, one possibility is that Israel is seeking to interdict Iranian ballistic missiles configured for launch from railcars, a concept that we have seen in North Korea, for example.
The Israeli military had earlier warned the people of Iran not to use trains, saying that doing so “endangers your life.” The Israeli military’s Farsi-language channel on X issued what it called an “urgent warning to users and train passengers in the country of Iran”:
“Dear Citizens, for the sake of your security, we kindly request that from this moment until 21:00 Iran time, you refrain from using and travelling by train throughout Iran. Your presence on trains and near railway lines endangers your life.”
Citing a new intelligence memo, The Times of London reports that Mojtaba Khamenei, the new Supreme Leader of Iran, is “unconscious” and currently incapable of running the country. Based on American and Israeli intelligence, the claim suggests that Mojtaba Khamenei is being treated for a “severe” unnamed medical condition in the religious city of Qom.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) today claimed it had struck a major petrochemical compound in Shiraz in southern Iran. According to the IDF, this facility was one of the last remaining facilities that produced critical chemical components for explosives and materials for ballistic missiles. The IDF said it also struck a large ballistic missile array site in northwestern Iran.
The IDF also released footage showing a strike on an apparent transporter-erector-launcher associated with a Russian-made S-300MPU-2 air defense system operated by Iran. While we cannot confirm the date of the strike, if recent, it would seem to point to the continued threat of Iranian air defense systems — including high-end ones.
Pakistan has indicated it would support Saudi Arabia under their mutual defense pact if the conflict with Iran intensifies further, a Pakistani security official told Reuters.
Israeli emergency services were responding today to a reported missile attack in central Israel. Footage from Israeli emergency service Magen David Adom showed an overturned car, but there were no immediate reports of injuries. The Times of Israel reports that the damage was caused by cluster submunitions from an Iranian ballistic missile. TWZ has previously examined how Iran has been using cluster warheads to consistently defeat terminal-phase ballistic missile defenses, especially Israel’s David’s Sling.
Iran’s latest barrage of drone and missile attacks against Gulf states saw Saudi Arabia’s air defenses pressed into action again. According to the Saudi Ministry of Defense, at least 18 drones were intercepted and destroyed over the past few hours. Before that, Saudi air defenses intercepted and destroyed seven ballistic missiles targeting the eastern region of the country, the defense ministry said. Debris reportedly fell in the area of some energy facilities, but damage is still being assessed.
The IDF struck more targets in southern Lebanon overnight. According to the state-run National News Agency, three people were killed in Maarakeh, one in Zebdine, one in Deir al-Zahrani, and three in Tayr Debba. Dozens more were wounded, including nine in Qatrani, the same source reported. The IDF had issued an alert on Monday, warning residents of a number of villages in the area that significant military action was planned.
A container ship south of Iran’s Kish Island was hit by an unidentified projectile, the U.K. Office of Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said on Tuesday.
All crew members are reported safe, with no environmental damage detected. The incident is still being investigated, and it remains unclear who fired the projectile or whether the vessel was the intended target.
An article in The Financial Times provides estimates of the cost of the campaign against Iran as Operation Epic Fury reaches the five-week mark. The newspaper quotes Elaine McCusker, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and a former senior Pentagon budget official, who puts the cost of the campaign as between $22.3 billion and $31 billion.
Her calculations include the cost of deploying additional U.S. assets to the Middle East since late December but do not include a full battle-damage assessment, which is unlikely to be clear before hostilities end.
A Wall Street Journal opinion piece notes that, with the notable exception of Spain, other European countries are quietly providing support for the U.S. military operation against Iran:
London, after some delay, authorized the use of British bases for U.S. strikes on Iranian missile sites targeting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Portugal reaffirmed its decision to allow the U.S. to use Lajes Air Base in the Azores. Germany has kept Ramstein Air Base available under standing agreements — a vital U.S. hub for logistics, force projection, and drone-linked operations beyond Europe — even as Berlin insists this isn’t NATO’s war.
The situation as regards the American use of British airbases for infrastructure attacks against Iran is a little less clear.
A report for the i suggested that the U.K. government will refuse to allow the use of RAF bases for any strikes on Iranian bridges or power plants. However, a spokesperson for the U.K. Prime Minister would not confirm or deny that, telling The Guardian that the government would not provide a “running commentary” on what the United States was doing, including its use of British bases.
Russian satellites have made dozens of detailed imagery surveys of military facilities and critical sites across the Middle East to help Iran strike U.S. forces and other targets, according to a Ukrainian intelligence assessment, reviewed by Reuters. The same assessment describes Russian and Iranian hackers collaborating in the cyber domain.
The U.S. military gym at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, known as The Diamond Mine, appears to have been the target of an Iranian attack, based on this before-and-after satellite imagery. Camp Buehring, in the northwestern region of Kuwait, was established in 2003, and is the primary location for the Middle Eastern Theater Reserve.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com
