Trump threatens an entire civilisation – how far can he go?

Donald Trump’s increasingly incendiary commentary about Iran has prompted fears that he could go even further to get his demands.

In a Truth Social post earlier today, he wrote: ‘A whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again. But maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?’

His recent commentary shows that Trump sees the entirety of Iran – and its 90,000,000 residents – as ‘expendable’, Dr Katayoun Shahandeh, Lecturer and Senior Teaching Fellow at SOAS, University of London, told Metro.

Still, Dr Shahandeh doubts the President would opt for nuclear weapons to ‘wipe out a civilisation’, as Trump warned earlier today.

‘He is now threatening a civilisation that is thousands of years old and not just the 47-year-old Islamic regime,’ Dr Shahandeh said.

‘This civilisation has withstood the attacks from the 4th century BCE, with the Macedonian conquest of Persia and the burning of Persepolis, to the Arab conquest, the Mongol invasions, the Anglo-Soviet invasion of 1941 and the Iraqi invasion of 1980, and yet it has endured!’

Strikes in the war so far have hit schools, universities, hospitals, housing and civilian infrastructure, with UNHCR reporting that millions have been displaced. All of this matters when assessing just how far Trump would go, Dr Shahandeh argues.

‘So far, the pattern points to overwhelming conventional force rather than nuclear escalation. At the same time, the fact that reports speak of iodine tablets being distributed, particularly to children, shows how deeply the fear of nuclear escalation has penetrated everyday life.’

Dr Simon A Bennett, of the University of Leicester, told Metro the chance of Trump using nuclear weapons is slim, even with his apocalyptic post. 

In his Truth Social post, Trump wrote: ‘If they don’t make a deal and fast, I’m considering blowing everything up and taking over the oil.’

Dr Bennett argues: ‘Actually, in saying this, Trump is confirming he will not use nuclear weapons.

‘If he uses nuclear weapons, he will irradiate Iran’s critical national infrastructure and territory to the point where it would be dangerous, and possibly deadly, to go in after the oil.

‘If it’s Iran’s oil he wants, the last thing he will do is contaminate the country with radioactive fallout. The contamination will last for decades. No US oil company would agree to operate in such a dangerous environment.’

Could Trump actually be considering nuclear weapons?

Julian Borger wrote in the Guardian today: ‘The extremity of Trump’s threats, coupled with his growing desperation to find a way out of the conflict, has increased fears that a volatile president could try to use a nuclear weapon.’

Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear weapons expert and professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, told the Guardian that although Trump previously showed restraint with nuclear weapons, he was now more unsure.

‘I don’t know how strong that respect is when he is losing the war and his mind at the same time.’

Last summer, Trump vowed to unleash ‘the most powerful and lethal weapons ever built’ if Russia were to supply nuclear warheads to Iran.

Trump has repeatedly said that the aim in Iran is to destroy the country’s nuclear facilities and spark ‘regime change’.

Today might be a turning point in the history of the region.

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