President Donald Trump vowed on Monday to wipe out Iran’s prized energy infrastructure if it does not agree to Washington’s peace proposal.
The United States has thus far spared military strikes on Kharg Island‘s oil infrastructure, which is the distribution point for 90% of Iran’s oil, and other key energy targets. Trump said that would soon change if a deal is not “shortly reached” and if Iran fails to open up the Strait of Hormuz, as the country continues to publicly downplay peace negotiations.
The president said last week he would give Iran until April 6th to agree to the deal, before carrying out “energy plant destruction.”
“The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran,” Trump said in a post to Truth Social on Monday.
“Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business,’ we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched,’” he continued. “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.’”
The war began on Feb. 28, when the U.S. and Israel launched strikes again Iran, citing in part, concerns about the regime’s nuclear program. The U.S. has been in peace talks with Iran since roughly March 21, according to Trump, with Pakistan serving as a third-party mediator in recent days.
Iran has publicly downplayed the negotiations, claiming Sunday that talk of any concessions is “fake.” The same day, Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, cited U.S. military buildup in the region as reason not to engage in peace talks.
“The enemy, openly, sends messages of negotiation and dialogue, but secretly is planning a ground attack,” he said.
But the White House has expressed confidence in recent days that new leadership in Iran, brought to the forefront after military strikes decimated tiers of Tehran’s top officials, are privately more amenable to talks. Trump said Sunday evening that he’s dealing with “a new group of people that we’ve never dealt with before that are acting very reasonable.”
The president has repeatedly extended deadlines for Iran to agree to a U.S. peace proposal, delaying promised strikes on power plants and other energy infrastructure as he said Tehran was engaged in negotiations. Still, while he has claimed negotiations are going well for the U.S., Trump has also said the “Iranian negotiators are very different and ‘strange.’”
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They are ‘begging’ us to make a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only ‘looking at our proposal,’” Trump complained last Thursday. “WRONG!!! They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty!”
If the U.S. chooses to spare Iran’s energy infrastructure, Trump has teased a takeover of the country’s oil industry, similar to Washington’s approach in Venezuela.
On Sunday, he said Washington could take over Kharg Island “very easily.”
“Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options,” Trump told the Financial Times. “It would also mean we had to be there [in Kharg Island] for a while.”
