WASHINGTON, D.C.\u00a0\u2014 Tonight, a major deadline is just hours away for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Failure to meet that deadline will result in what President Donald Trump calls the destruction of \u201ca whole civilization.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A stark warning Tuesday morning from the president is raising major fears about a drastic escalation in the war.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0also concerning for Iranian Americans who have family and friends in Iran and want to see an empowered resistance movement \u2014 not destruction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
8:00pm ET\u00a0Tuesday\u2014 that\u2019s President Trump\u2019s deadline for Iran to reopen a major global oil chokepoint, or face consequences.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd after that,\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0going to have no bridges.\u00a0They\u2019re\u00a0going to have no power plants,\u201d President Trump said Monday. \u201cThe entire country can be taken out in one night.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u00a0morning,\u00a0President Trump warned\u00a0if Iran does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz and agree to end the war\u00a0by the deadline,\u00a0a \u201cwhole civilization\u201d will die.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0want that to happen, but it\u00a0probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail,\u00a0maybe something\u00a0revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!\u201d\u00a0Trump wrote on Truth Social.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n The White House dismissed\u00a0concerns that such targets could be considered war crimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThese are people that are living where the bombs are exploding. And when we leave and\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0not hitting those areas,\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0saying, \u2018please come back, come back, come back,\u2019\u201d Trump said when asked about innocent Iranian civilians on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI am certainly worried about civilian loss,\u201d\u00a0said Dr. Majid Sadeghpour, the political director for the Organization of Iranian American Communities (OAIC).\u00a0\u201cAll parties involved here in this war must do everything they can to protect the people, including the economic and civil\u00a0infrastructure of Iran.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIran is its people, not the regime. Whatever is done, the Iranian people must be treated with care\u00a0and as an ally of the free world-\u00a0particularly\u00a0the\u00a0United States,\u201d\u00a0Sadeghpour said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Dr. Sadeghpour says bombing Iran \u2014 especially civilian targets \u2014 makes it more difficult for organized opposition \u2014 like the National Council of Resistance of Iran \u2014 to stay organized and to mobilize.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMounting an uprising in the middle of\u00a0bombing\u00a0is nearly impossible,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEnding, the threat of the Iranian regime\u00a0requires a fundamental change in the regime. For that to occur, you need an organized force on the ground to fight the regime. Bombs from airplanes will not do it. That force has existed for 45 years,\u201d\u00a0Sadeghpour\u00a0added. \u201cThe main concern of the Iranian regime is its own defiant population inside Iran, because they are afraid of igniting an underground of uprising in Iran.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n With the clock ticking toward eight o\u2019clock \u2014 energy markets are\u00a0watching closely\u00a0amid surging gas and oil prices.\u00a0U.S. benchmark oil \u2014 West Texas Intermediate \u2014\u00a0rose\u00a0above\u00a0$116 a barrel\u00a0Tuesday, while Brent crude is trading around\u00a0$110. AAA says the national average for regular gas is now\u00a0roughly $4.14\u00a0a gallon.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, D.C.\u00a0\u2014 Tonight, a major deadline is just hours away for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[22102,102,101,22101,2594,22103],"class_list":["post-56546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-strait-of-hormuz","tag-bureau","tag-hormuz","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-u-s-capitol","tag-washington-d-c","tag-washington-d-c-bureau"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116365807039069654","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}