US denies nuclear plan as deadline on threat to Iran ‘civilisation’ looms

The White House has denied that it has any plans to use nuclear weapons against Iran as a deadline imposed by President Donald Trump for Tehran to make a deal or face a massive onslaught looms.

The denial from Washington came on Tuesday, as the president employed apocalyptic language. Insisting that Iran capitulate to his demands, Trump warned that a “whole civilisation will die tonight”.

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Texas Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro called on Trump to immediately make it clear that he is not considering using nuclear weapons.

Vice President JD Vance later said that US forces could employ tools they “so far haven’t decided to use”. That spurred an account associated with former Vice President Kamala Harris to assert that Vance implied Trump “might use nuclear weapons”.

“Literally nothing @VP said here ‘implies’ this, you absolute buffoons,” a social media post by the White House retorted.

However, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared less certain when asked by the AFP news agency if Trump was prepared to use a nuclear weapon.

“Only the President knows where things stand and what he will do,” she said in a statement.

The original ultimatum was made by Trump on Saturday, when he demanded that Iran make a deal to open the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of global energy exports pass, or face an assault on key infrastructure, including power plants and bridges.

The deadline falls at 8pm Eastern time (00:00 GMT). Legal experts say targeting civilian infrastructure could amount to a war crime.

‘Beyond the region’

“A whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” said Trump on his TruthSocial on Tuesday. However, he said, “something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight.”

However, the Iranian response has been defiant. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said it will not hesitate to respond in kind if the US attacks civilian facilities.

“We will do to the infrastructure of America and its partners what will deprive them and their allies of the region’s oil and gas for many years,” the IRGC said in a statement.

Washington fails to calculate the critical assets that would be within Iranian fire range, it said. “Our response will extend beyond the region if the US military crosses our red lines.”

President Masoud Pezeskhian said that more than 14 million Iranians, including himself, have volunteered to fight to defend Iran.

The fiery threats, which have reached a feverish peak, between the US president and Iranian officials come as Israel-US strikes on Iran and Iranian attacks across the region and Israel intensified.

Vance confirmed on Tuesday that US ⁠⁠strikes targeted military infrastructure on Iran’s Kharg Island, a key energy export hub, although he said that oil facilities were not hit.

The island, a tiny one in the north of the Gulf, is where about 90 percent of Iranian oil is exported from. Seizing it or destroying oil storage tanks and pumping facilities would remove a key economic lifeline to the IRGC.

This is the second time the US has struck Kharg. On March 14, Washington claimed to have “totally obliterated” all military targets there, with Trump saying that he had chosen not to “wipe out” the oil infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israeli army had struck railways and bridges in Iran, and the military confirmed it had attacked bridge sections in several areas across the country, claiming that they were used by the IRGC to transport weapons and military equipment.

Bearing the brunt

In Israel, sirens sounded in the north and south as missiles and drones were launched by Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to Israeli media reports.

Gulf countries, in the meantime, continue to bear the brunt of Iran’s retaliatory attacks.

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait said they intercepted drones throughout the day, while the United Arab Emirates said it was responding to an Iranian ballistic missile that targeted an administrative building of a telecommunication company.

Still, mediating countries seem to be hoping that a diplomatic breakthrough could still be made.

In the early hours of Tuesday, Iranian ambassador to Pakistan, Reza ⁠⁠Amiri Moghadam, said efforts ⁠⁠to stop the war were approaching a “critical, sensitive” stage, without offering more details.

His comments came after Iran proposed on Monday a 10-point peace plan to end the war, which Trump called a “significant step” but “not good enough”.