Trump outlines four-hour blitz of destruction if Iran doesn’t make a deal

Washington: US President Donald Trump has pledged to blow up Iran’s power plants and bridges in a four-hour blitz of destruction if a deal is not agreed before his imminent deadline, brushing aside concerns about war crimes and insisting the Iranian people wanted American bombing to continue.

Speaking at the White House about 30 hours before the notional expiry of his deadline, Trump said little about talks underway with the Iranians, other than that Iran was “an active, willing participant” and he believed they were negotiating in good faith.

“We have a plan … where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night,” he said. “Every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again. It’ll happen over a period of four hours if we want it to.”

Trump has set a deadline of 8pm Tuesday Washington time (10am Wednesday AEST). “The entire country could be taken in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” he said.

The president said he was not bothered by accusations he would be committing war crimes by deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure.

“I hope I don’t have to do it,” he said, while attacking a reporter from The New York Times for asking the question.

The threat raises the stakes after Iran sent a signal through mediators that it was unwilling to accept a 45-day ceasefire proposal without guarantees that it would not be attacked again.

Meanwhile, Israel stepped up its attacks by striking a key petrochemical plant in Iran’s massive South Pars natural gas field and killing two commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

For the first time, Trump suggested the US could help Iran rebuild after the war, and even said the US might exercise some control over the Strait of Hormuz – a crucial oil and shipping corridor – by charging tolls.

“I’d rather do that than let them have it. Why shouldn’t we? We’re the winner,” he said. “We won. They are military defeated. The only thing they have is the psychology of, ‘We’re going to drop mines in the water’.”

Trump said the Iranian people were begging the US to keep bombing Iran because they wanted to be rid of the oppressive theocratic regime in Tehran – even if it meant striking civilian infrastructure.

“They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom,” he said. “They’re saying, ‘Please come back, come back, come back’. They have lived in a world that you know nothing about. It’s a violent, horrible world … They want us to keep bombing.”

However, there were several mixed messages from the president about whether he trusted the Iranian leaders with which the US is negotiating, and how far he was willing to go in any further military operations in Iran.

Trump called the Iranian leadership “disturbed people” who wanted a nuclear weapon – just a day after he described them as “crazy bastards” in a provocative social media post.

But he also said they were smarter, sharper and far less radical than previous iterations of the Islamic Republic leaders, and he believed they were negotiating in good faith.

Earlier, Trump said that while he would like to launch a mission to seize the country’s oil, Americans “unfortunately” wanted their troops to come home.

“If it were up to me, I’d like to keep the oil, I just don’t think the people of the United States would really understand,” he told reporters during a White House Easter function.

“They support what we’re doing, but they would like to see it end, and [our troops] come back.”

At his news conference, Trump was asked about the apparent contradiction between his threats to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age” and his message that the war was winding down.

“Which is it?” a reporter asked. Trump replied: “I can’t tell you – I don’t know. It depends on what they [the Iranians] do. This is a critical period.”

The US president reiterated that he felt betrayed by American allies who failed to assist in the war, including Australia, Japan and South Korea, as well as members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

“You know who else didn’t help us? South Korea didn’t help us. You know who else didn’t help us? Australia didn’t help us. You know who else didn’t help us? Japan,” he said.

Trump asserted that America’s European allies stayed out of the war because of simmering tensions over his demand to take over the Denmark-controlled territory of Greenland.

“We want Greenland. They don’t want to give it to us, and I said, ‘Bye-bye’,” he said, before walking offstage.

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