As tensions tip toward a potential inflection point, rhetoric and military action are converging in ways that signal a decisive escalation. With strategic infrastructure already under attack and energy markets reacting, the focus is shifting from signals to consequences.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” the President of the United States posted on Truth Social, thirteen hours before his own deadline. Trump continued: “Now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen..!”
The US struck Kharg Island, the artery for 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports and the IRGC warned it would deprive American allies of the region’s oil and gas for years. Crude markets rose three percent on the Kharg headlines, but they may be watching the wrong variable.
There is little doubt that the US President’s warning of “a complete demolition” of Iran’s power plants and bridges is not an empty threat. The US and Israel have demonstrated reach by destroying the iconic Karaj bridge, one of the largest in West Asia, which served as a critical corridor for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to move missile systems and drones—the mainstay of this conflict.
The IRGC knows well that Trump’s ‘bridge day ultimatum’—of bombing Iran “back to the Stone Age”—puts at least five more bridges at risk along with petrochemical and nuclear facilities.
But Israel is not immune to Iranian hell-fire either. In an under-reported mini exodus, thousands of Israelis, foreign diplomats and workers are fleeing to the country’s southernmost city of Eilat and forking out hundreds of dollars to cross from Nuweiba on the Gulf of Aqaba into Jordan as Tehran is targeting the Negev desert and Ben Gurion airport.
Iran’s push to reassert control over southern Lebanon and draw Syria, Iraq and Yemen deeper into its orbit—countering ‘Greater Israel’ with a ‘Greater Iran’—is underway. Simultaneously, it is moving to punish Gulf Arab states for hosting US bases and normalising ties with Israel, as seen in the UAE’s Abraham Accords.
There could be a twist in the tale for Pakistan watchers, too. Insiders are claiming that one of the reasons Islamabad’s peace proposals were rejected is that it lost Tehran’s trust of being an independent interlocutor when it allowed several US ships to be reflagged as Pakistani to help them pass the blockaded Strait of Hormuz.
The vitriol that colours official statements in this biting war of words skirts another key development--the battle within Iran that Tehran has put a tight lid on. Iranians old and young who had come out on the streets in thousands on January 8 and 9, before there was hint of a conflagration with US-Israel, were looking for regime change. They came up against the Basij militia and other hardliners who violently cracked down. The mood on the streets is different now.
Most Iranian analysts dismiss internal dissent as Mossad-driven propaganda, yet émigrés report a quiet rumble among educated youth, silenced by US bombings of schools, hospitals, and universities. The movement is tainted by Reza Pahlavi, viewed as an American-Israeli puppet.
Trump’s claim of supplying arms heightens risks for pro-regime-change Iranians, while Israel arrests anti-war Haredi Jews for leaking intelligence to Tehran, highlighting the conflict’s complex, multidirectional pressures on civilians, dissidents, and regional actors alike.
But as peace talks run aground and the prospect of land invasion gains traction--with native Kurds nudged into backing the US--would Iran be willing to back down, as it did once on its nuclear weapons programme? Supporting the thought is the Gulf countries trying to find ways to avoid the Hormuz block.
The southern part of the strait is largely controlled by Oman. With the UAE’s foreign policy adviser Anwar Gargash stating that the strait cannot be held hostage by any country, moves are afoot to circumvent it through land and air corridors across Saudi Arabia to keep trade routes open.
Tehran’s counter-offer to the peace proposals includes a permanent end to the war, not just in Iran but in Lebanon and Gaza; recognition of Iran’s sovereignty over Hormuz strait and the right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; lifting of economic sanctions; and payment of reparations for war damage. Removed from the list is the demand that countries be asked to cut ties with Israel.
The buzz within the Masoud Pezeshkian government, as opposed to the tougher line spouted by hardliners, is that they should take the nuclear deal that was on the table in February, only this time with the caveat that they would not be attacked again.
Despite the unpleasant rant by Trump on Tuesday that “a whole civilisation will die”, is there another deal on offer? Or will there be a ‘bonfire of defiance’ that Iran will not be able to douse? Either way, peace will come at a huge price.