An entire civilization is supposed to die tonight

Tehran - Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday morning: “An entire civilization will fall tonight, never to return.” He added that he does not want this, but that it will likely happen. The world remains silent. Twelve hours before the expiration of his own ultimatum. Hours later, Vice President JD Vance confirmed at a press conference in Budapest that the United States had again attacked Kharg Island - Iran’s most important oil export hub. “I think we did that,” Vance said, as if it were a routine question. He expressed confidence that by 8 PM local time he would receive a response from Tehran, whether positive or negative. “I hope they are smart,” he said.

While Trump and Vance speak, thousands of Iranians are trying to leave the country. Since the airports were closed, they have been traveling by trains, buses and rented taxis toward the Turkish border. The trains for this week were fully booked. A Tehran resident who had already crossed the border said he had rented a taxi for 880 kilometers to the border. He planned to return after a few months.

In Tehran, people are on the streets with signs that read: “Infrastructure is not a battlefield. It is the backbone of civilian life.” Some of these protests are real, some are organized by the state - in Iran this line has been fluid for decades. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia reported that it had intercepted four drones in the past hours. Israel warned of the fourth rocket barrage of the day. Bombs struck Iran’s railway network.

Mahmoud, 35, carries milk and potatoes home and says he had expected something more creative from Trump than hell. Then he laughs briefly and adds that hell has been a permanent condition in Iran for years anyway - through sanctions, assassinations, war. Hell will therefore be replaced by hell. Maryam Mehrabi, 67 years old and retired, calmly lists: the war of the 1980s, when Iraq attacked Iran, then the war in June, in which she lost a close friend, and now this. She says she has no idea what comes next. A young couple in a café in Tehran, who do not want to give their names, describe daily life like this: At night impacts and explosions, during the day more and more checkpoints on the streets. The man says he feels like he is between the blades of a pair of scissors. There has been no internet for more than a month, and soon a power outage is looming.

While these people speak, the state news agency Mizan reports that an airstrike on the province of Alborz northwest of Tehran killed at least 18 people and injured 24 others. What exactly was hit is initially unclear. For weeks, attacks have shaken Tehran and its surroundings, including a possible weapons depot in the mountains and residential districts.

Then Israel’s military warned the Iranian population not to use trains for safety reasons. The last option of escape is thus deliberately blocked. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just confirmed that Israeli fighter jets attacked bridges and railway lines in Iran. In a statement from his office, he claimed that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard had used this infrastructure to transport materials for weapons production. The attacks were not directed against the Iranian civilian population, but against the regime - so Netanyahu, who approved the strikes together with Defense Minister Israel Katz. “This is not the same Iran anymore, and this is not the same Israel anymore. We are shifting the balance of power from one end to the other,” he said. What he did not say: Bridges and railway lines are used by the people who live there, who go to work, who want to flee.

The Iranian regime has been brutal in its treatment of its own population for decades - that is not an opinion, but a documented fact. But the justification of this war, the intelligence material it relies on, is either outdated or wrong. And the idea that one frees the Iranian civilian population by destroying their power plants, bridges and railway lines is not a strategy - it is a lie that no one dares to say out loud anymore. The civilian population is not the target of liberation. It is the price that both sides are willing to pay.

To be continued .....