The president of the United States, Donald Trump, launched this Sunday his toughest warning to date, loaded with insults, against the authorities of Iran after the blocking of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. He has given them until next Tuesday to reopen the maritime passage or, otherwise, he will order a massive offensive against the country's key infrastructures.
"Next Tuesday will be Energy Plants Day and Bridges Day, all in one," Trump has declared, before assuring that there will be "nothing like" the attack he will unleash if Tehran ignores his ultimatum.
The message, repeated with maximum aggression, has included a direct threat: "Open the fucking strait, crazy bastards, or you are going to live in hell. Wait and see. Praise be to Allah," he concluded.
Minutes later, in an interview with Fox News, Trump has expressed his total weariness with the standoff with Iran. "If they don't reach a quick agreement, I am considering blowing everything up and seizing the oil," he indicated, although he said he still trusts in closing 'in extremis' an understanding before Monday, despite the frontal refusal of the Iranian authorities to directly accept his demands.
"The important thing is that they are not going to have a nuclear weapon. They are not even negotiating that point. It's very easy. On that they have already conceded. They have conceded on most of the points," Trump explained when detailing the state of the conversations.
Agreement options and previous attacks
In a subsequent interview with the Axios portal, the president has stressed that "the negotiations are going very well" through mediators and with the involvement of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. "But with the Iranians you never reach the finish line," he clarified. "There is a good opportunity, but if they don't reach an agreement, I'm going to blow everything up," he warned.
Trump recounted that, a few days ago, Washington and Tehran were close to closing a pact to initiate direct contacts. "But when they told us they would meet with us in five days I asked them 'Why five days?' It didn't seem to me that they were being serious, so I attacked the bridge," he explained, alluding to the bombing of the B1 bridge in Karaj, on the outskirts of Tehran, which left thirteen dead.
To favor dialogue, Trump maintains that the Iranian representatives with whom they are dealing, without identifying them, "have received immunity to death" at their own request, with the aim of protecting them against new attacks from the United States like those that ended with the Iranian clerical leadership, headed by the deceased Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at the beginning of the war.
The president has also alluded to the expectations of the Iranian opposition. "The people of Iran are afraid that we will leave in the middle of the war, but we are not going to leave," he has stressed.
In later statements to 'The Wall Street Journal', he insisted that "if they don't enter, if they want to keep it closed," the Strait of Hormuz, "they are going to lose all the power plants and all the other plants they have throughout the country."
Trump has finalized his stance on ABC network: "There should be an agreement in a few days because no one in their right mind could withstand the punishment that will fall on them if not (...). If there's an agreement, there's an agreement. And if there isn't, we're going to blow up the entire country."
Reactions in Iran and in United States
The first response from Iran has arrived through its network of embassies, such as Pakistan's, which has openly demanded from the US institutions that they activate an impeachment process for Trump for reasons of mental health.
"DJ Trump must be removed for his unbalanced behavior and for his incompetence to hold high-ranking official positions," the diplomatic mission has stated, before pointing out that "the responsibility falls on Congress and those who elected him, as well as on the cabinet, which is committing treason by not invoking the 25th amendment" constitutional.
The Democratic opposition in the United States has reacted in similar terms. The leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, has publicly questioned the president's mental stability. "Happy Easter, America. While we go to church to celebrate with family and friends, the president of the United States is ranting like an unbalanced lunatic on social media," Schumer said, recalling that Trump is threatening to commit war crimes by attacking civilian infrastructure in an enemy country in the midst of war.
Senator Bernie Sanders has also questioned his fitness for office. "One month after starting the war in Iran this is the speech of the President of the United States on Easter Sunday," he indicated alongside a screenshot of Trump's message on Truth Social. "These are the ravings of a dangerous and mentally unbalanced individual. Congress must act NOW. Let's stop this war," he argued.
Along the same lines, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy has called for initiating an impeachment process. "If I were in the Trump administration, I would spend Easter calling constitutional lawyers to ask them about the 25th Amendment," he stated on social media, in reference to the rule on presidential succession due to vacancy, disqualification, or incapacitation. "This is complete and absolute madness. He has already killed thousands. He is going to kill thousands more," he warned.
The secretary general of Amnesty International, Agnès Callamard, has called Trump's message "repulsive." "I am running out of words to condemn this. Iranian civilians will be the first to suffer the destruction of their power plants and bridges. They will be left without heating, without electricity or water, and without a way to escape, with all that this entails against their right to live," she lamented.
The former Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor has added that "our president is not Christian and his words and actions should not be supported by Christians". "He has gone crazy," she has sentenced.