On Easter Sunday, Trump threatened to send the Iranians to hell. Another ultimatum. Like the ones before the holidays. This usually happens with vacations. You try to disconnect from your problems, and even if you succeed, when you come back they are still there. There are still the mountain of unanswered emails and the closed Strait of Hormuz.
The US president has postponed his ultimatum to Iran three or four times. Yesterday he told Fox News that he believed he could reach a peace deal with Iran by today, but then he returned to the threats and expletives. From imminent peace to threats of annihilation in two tweets. “Open the fucking strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll live in hell,” the commander-in-chief said. As conversational as ever.
Threatening the Iranians that all hell will fall on them is not very similar to the promise he made to free them at the start of the war. He also threatened to bomb Iran “into the Stone Age.” In the Stone Age there were no oppressive dictatorships, of course. There was nothing.
If Iran does not give in, Trump threatens to “destroy everything” and take control of its oil. By destroying everything, he apparently means attacking power plants and bridges if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened today. That is, Trump threatens to attack key infrastructure for the survival of 93 million Iranians subject to the ayatollah regime. He openly acknowledges that he is willing to commit war crimes, because attacking civilian infrastructure is a war crime, in order to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, closed by the war that he himself started. That things go back to how they were before the war is the closest thing to a victory that he already aspires to.
The regime is still standing, oil is increasingly expensive and the Iranians are under bombs. A month or so later, Trump is not achieving any of his objectives. And he issues an ultimatum. Other. It should be called, better, a penultimatum.
Moral?
Trump threatens hell,
the ayatollahs tell him to go to hell
