Trump says US in talks to end Iran war – but threatens to bomb energy plants if deal to end ‘lovely stay’ falls apart
Less than 12 hours after claiming Iran had accepted most of his purported 15-point plan to end the month-old American-Israeli war he started, President Donald Trump is renewing his threats to attack Tehran’s civilian infrastructure if the Iranian regime does not agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said there’d been “great progress” in “serious discussions” with what he described as the “new and more reasonable regime” in Tehran but warned that if a “deal is not shortly reached,” the U.S. would be “completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants).”
“This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year ‘Reign of Terror,’” he added.
The president’s extraordinary threat to attack Iran’s power and water systems — attacks that would almost certainly violate the Fourth Geneva Convention’s prohibitions against targeting civilian infrastructure necessary for a population’s survival — comes exactly one week after he backed off a prior threat to target Tehran’s electrical generation capacity while citing what he described as “productive conversations” with Tehran even as Iranian government officials denied that any such talks had taken place.
Trump has repeatedly claimed there has been progress towards an agreement to end the war, which is entering its second month, even as Tehran has denied any direct talks with Washington since the start of the air campaign.
Iranian state media has also reported that the government has rejected the purported peace plan.
Trump is also understood to be considering plans to launch a high-stakes ground operation to seize Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles from deep within the country at sites he has repeatedly claimed to have “obliterated,” both in a series of airstrikes by B-2 stealth bombers last June and during the current hostilities which he launched on February 28.
On Sunday, he told reporters aboard Air Force One that the Iranian military had been “decimated” and suggested that Tehran had agreed to “give up nuclear weapons” and “give us the nuclear dust,” referring to the weapons-grade nuclear materials.
He also expressed optimism about the same talks which Iran’s government has denied taking part in while boasting that the month-long bombing campaign had brought about “regime change” by killing most of the country’s previous leadership.
“I think we’ll make a deal with them, pretty sure, but it’s possible we won’t, but we’ve had regime change, if you look already, because the one regime was decimated, destroyed, they’re all dead,” he said.
“They’re going to do everything that we want to do. If they don’t do that, they’re not going to have a country,” he added.
Seizing Iran’s uranium would entail a complex operation involving American troops flying to nuclear sites while under fire from Iranian forces.
Combat troops would need to secure the perimeters of the sites, supported by highly-skilled technical staff and engineers on board to extract the radioactive material. This would need to be carried in around 40 to 50 special cylinders to be transported out of the country without incident.
They would also need to assess the territory for mines and other explosive devices designed to ward off security breaches.
