How far will Trump go in Iran?

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We’re now more than five weeks into President Donald Trump’s unpopular and apparently unprovoked war with Iran, and any decisive “victory” still seems far off. The US and Israel have dominated the battlefield from the start. But Iran successfully brought an economic crisis to a gunfight: By closing the Strait of Hormuz, a major chokepoint in the global energy trade, it spiked the price of oil, fertilizer, and other goods and triggered rationing and curfews in dozens of countries. A gallon of gas now tops $4, on average, in the United States. 

Trump has veered from one approach to another as he struggles to resolve this thorny situation. First he tried suggesting that the closure of the strait was not actually a problem at all. When that failed, he said other countries would handle it. On Sunday morning, he took a very, er, different tact: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” he posted on Truth Social, where he threatened to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges. 

The thing about Trump’s threats is that he often doesn’t follow through on them. Online commentators have even coined an acronym for this: TACO, or “Trump always chickens out.” Should Trump not chicken out, however, then the US could be bombing 93 million civilians “back to the Stone Ages” in a matter of hours. 

But let’s back up. Why is the US in Iran to begin with?

The US and Israel launched surprise airstrikes against Iran on February 28. Trump has variably claimed those strikes were intended to eliminate an “imminent threat,” to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, and/or to oust the repressive, theocratic regime that has ruled the country for generations. 

You might generously assume that, in pursuing multiple and occasionally conflicting objectives, Trump is taking something of a many-birds-with-one-stone approach. But as NPR’s Mara Liasson put it Monday, it certainly looks like he’s making the strategy up “as he goes.”

The Iranians, on the other hand, have been very strategic. Using a vast supply of small, cheap drones, the regime has brought the (asymmetric) fight to the US and Israel, forcing both countries to drain their supply of expensive interceptor missiles.

They also weaponized the country’s geography by blockading the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway that many — dare I say most? — Americans could not name or place before last month. Reopening the strait is now a central objective of the military action, and the Trump administration seems to understand that the war will be perceived as a loss for the US unless/until it reopens.

What will persuade Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz?

That’s the $200 billion question. At times, Trump has seemed determined to make the problem go away by insisting it doesn’t exist. Just last week, he claimed that the strait would “open up naturally” after the conflict ended and said other countries that rely on Gulf oil should take on the task of getting tankers through again. 

At other times, Trump has taken a starkly different approach — threatening to dramatically and aggressively escalate strikes if Iran didn’t reopen the strait. On each occasion, however, he’s given the Iranian regime a deadline…and then delayed. And delayed.

On March 21, he threatened to “obliterate” Iranian power plants if the strait was not opened within 48 hours. He then extended that timeline until March 26 to allow for negotiations. 

On March 26, Trump again extended the deadline, this time until the evening of April 6. On April 5, he bumped it to 8 pm Eastern today, April 7. He also threw in a couple well-placed profanity to signal he meant business.

How serious are Trump’s threats?

If you mean “serious” as in “sincere” or “likely,” we have no earthly clue. And reasonable people can probably disagree on whether swearing makes you sound like a more or less serious person. 

But in terms of how significant or worrying these threats are, the answer is: incredibly. International law permits military strikes on power plants and similar infrastructure only if they contribute to military operations. Widespread strikes on civilian targets are likely “illegal and unacceptable,” as one high-ranking European Union official put it. 

US and Israeli strikes have already killed 1,500 civilians and badly damaged infrastructure in Iran, including highway bridges, energy and industrial sites, residential neighborhoods, and school campuses. These new threats would go considerably further, potentially disrupting electricity, health care, clean water, and other critical services for millions of Iranians.

Both the US and Iran have rejected ceasefire proposals that would have paused fighting for 45 days and established a path for reopening the strait. In the absence of that kind of negotiated off-ramp, we have a surreal, uncertain countdown…and Trump’s Truth Social feed.