President Donald Trump escalated his strategy for dealing with an implacable Iran, pledging to blow up one bridge or power plant for every munition fired at ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
“From this point forward, any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it be by Missile, Rocket, Drone, or any other device or weapon, the United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT, including those located next to, or in, the Capital City of Tehran,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
The threat is distinguished from his past threats to Iran in its specificity, outlining an actionable tit-for-tat escalation ladder to follow, rather than more vague threats of wider destruction if an ultimatum isn’t reached.
The United States has increasingly targeted dual-use infrastructure since resuming strikes against Iran earlier this month, primarily bridges.
Friday saw the biggest tangible escalation of U.S. strikes, with the increased targeting of bridges, power infrastructure, and port facilities. The U.S. fully destroyed a massive surveillance tower responsible for monitoring shipping through the city of Chabahar, Iran’s southernmost port city. U.S. Central Command alleged that the tower was used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to track and attack merchant shipping vessels.
Bridges and tunnels leading to Iran’s main port city of Bandar Abbas were hit, isolating the city from the mainland. Roughly half of all Iran’s trade enters through the port city, and 85% of its container traffic.
Iran’s Energy Ministry acknowledged U.S. “attacks on power infrastructure” for the first time on Friday, telling people in the southern provinces to ration their energy use. CENTCOM hasn’t publicly disclosed any attacks targeting power plants or other civilian infrastructure, nor are such strikes seen in the video montages published after the strikes.
The destruction of bridges has been confirmed by videos at the locations.
TRUMP VOWS IRAN WILL ‘PAY’ FOR KILLING US TROOPS. WHAT COMES NEXT?
The U.S. has struck Iran for nearly two weeks straight after the collapse of the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding, which Trump declared “over” after new attacks on shipping. He’s since taken a more hardline approach to dealing with Iran, deriding negotiations with the government as fruitless and in bad faith.
He insisted in a Thursday primetime address that the U.S. was “winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labor very, very shortly.”