It was a stunning threat that promised to eliminate Iranian civilization, delivered with all the casual callousness that has become President Trump’s preferred style of communication.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
This is what passes as a normal Tuesday-morning update from the Trump White House: a warning of mass destruction and what international law would define as war crimes, blithely delivered on Truth Social, posted alongside ads for bullet-shaped pens, patriotic hats and a gala dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
“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?” Mr. Trump wrote in his message. “We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.”
The message arrived two days after Mr. Trump marked Easter Sunday by calling on the Iranians to end its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” he wrote.
In the minds of the president and his supporters, a post threatening mass extinction is all part of Mr. Trump’s chaotic negotiation style, intended to prompt an end to his self-inflicted conflict and persuade Tehran to open the strait. Even for Mr. Trump, who has a long history of comments that fly far beyond the pale, his latest comments bear the mark of an impulsive leader who is used to getting his way through coercion and unpredictability, but who is not getting his way now.
Though Israel and the United States began striking Iran on Tuesday as Mr. Trump’s threats escalated, there were no indications that the U.S. military was moving the sort of weaponry that would allow Mr. Trump to carry out his threat.
Striking civilian infrastructure could be a war crime under international law. Some of the president’s advisers see Mr. Trump’s escalating rhetoric as a negotiating tactic that suggests he is more interested in finding a way out of the war than following through with a devastating attack.
Still, Alex Wellerstein, a historian who studies nuclear conflicts, said that even if Mr. Trump does not carry out the extent of his threat, the president’s violent rhetoric damages his credibility as a negotiator and his country’s standing in the world.
“You’re talking about a world that largely increasingly sees the United States as unhinged and dangerous, and not a reliable partner,” he said, “where all of the countries that typically align with democracy and freedom are on the other side of the United States.”
Some of Mr. Trump’s most fervent supporters have joined the usual chorus of critics. Tucker Carlson, the right-wing podcaster, said that the president’s Easter message had “shattered” the holiest day on the Christian calendar.
“It is vile on every level,” Mr. Carlson said on his podcast. “It begins with a promise to use the U.S. military, our military, to destroy civilian infrastructure in another country, which is to say to commit a war crime, a moral crime against the people of the country, whose welfare, by the way, was one of the reasons we supposedly went into this war in the first place.”
The president responded by calling Mr. Carlson a “low I.Q. person,” and continuing on with his war. Ever a reality television producer, Mr. Trump wants to program this war like he does everything else — through cliffhangers and wait-and-see diplomacy. As such, Mr. Trump has created an 8 p.m. Eastern deadline for Tehran to comply, according to Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary.
“Only the president knows where things stand and what he will do,” she said in a statement. Later on Tuesday, Ms. Leavitt said that Mr. Trump was considering a plea by Pakistani intermediaries for the U.S. and Iran to declare a two-week cease-fire so diplomatic negotiations could continue.
Americans have seen versions of this playbook before: Mr. Trump makes increasingly escalatory threats, secures some semblance of a deal and walks away declaring victory. In January, Mr. Trump threatened to send in U.S. forces to capture the Danish territory of Greenland. He settled for an agreement to increase the number of American troops there.
With Iran, though, there is still little evidence that Mr. Trump is going to get what he wants. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesman for the Iranian military, has said that Iran would retaliate “crushingly and extensively” if its civilian infrastructure were attacked.
And even if there is a cease-fire, Mr. Trump is far from achieving his larger strategic objectives.
The president’s increasingly violent messaging betrays a degree of frustration that he has not gotten what he wanted after pushing back an earlier deadline to barrage the country’s infrastructure. His threats to level power plants and oil installations and bridges have seemed to have the opposite effect on some Iranians, who have formed human chains around points of infrastructure that support civilian life.
Even some people who have supported Mr. Trump in the past see his strategy on Iran, to the extent that there is one, as damaging and dangerous.
“Trump believes he is threatening Iran with destruction, but it is America that now stands in danger,” Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center who resigned in March, wrote on X. “If he attempts to eradicate Iranian civilization, the United States will no longer be viewed as a stabilizing force in the world, but as an agent of chaos — effectively ending our status as the world’s greatest superpower.”
Several Republicans in Congress, who are absent from Washington during a two-week recess, criticized the president’s rhetoric, although many of them have stayed mum.
Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a close ally of Mr. Trump’s, left room for the possibility that Mr. Trump was posturing: “I hope and pray that President Trump is just using this as bluster.”
Mr. Trump’s message also alarmed top Democrats, who quickly promised to force another vote on a resolution to rein in the use of the military in Iran.
“This is an extremely sick person,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, wrote on X after Mr. Trump sent his threat. “Each Republican who refuses to join us in voting against this wanton war of choice owns every consequence of whatever the hell this is.”
Other Democrats have called to remove Mr. Trump from office over his threats, with some calling for impeachment and others pointing to the 25th Amendment, which provides a process for a president to be stripped of power if he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
They were joined by Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former Republican representative who has shifted from being one of Trump’s staunchest allies to being one of his most vocal detractors.
“25TH AMENDMENT!!!” she wrote on X. “Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness.”
Tyler Pager, Michael Gold and Robert Jimison contributed reporting.
Katie Rogers is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.
The post With Threat to Wipe Out Iran’s Civilization, Trump’s Rhetoric Goes Beyond Bluster appeared first on New York Times.
