What the US military could do if Iran fails to meet Trump's ultimatum

The clock is ticking on President Donald Trump's threat to wipe out much of Iran's civilian infrastructure if the country doesn't strike a deal by Tuesday evening in the US.

But Trump has backed himself into a corner with threats that the US military can't feasibly carry out in a one fell swoop, military experts and analysts told the BBC. And they warn that a new round of attacks, no matter how large, is unlikely to force the Iranian regime to quickly agree to a ceasefire.

Trump vowed on Monday to destroy "every bridge" and power station in Iran in just four hours if a deal isn't reached by EST 20:00 (02:00 GMT). He escalated even further on Tuesday morning, warning that "a whole civilization will die" if Iran doesn't agree to a deal by his deadline.

Taken together, the warnings amounted to an unprecedented threat from a US president. Critics said targeting civilian infrastructure would constitute a war crime, a concern Trump dismissed at a press conference on Monday.

Setting that issue aside, former US defence officials and other analysts said the US simply can't destroy every bridge in a country the size of Iran in just a few hours, as Trump threatened to do.

Iran is approximately one-third the size of the continental US. The US knows the exact location of Iran's main nuclear facilities and other key infrastructure, but likely cannot identify thousands of other targets across the country and destroy them in such a short time span, experts said.

"To meet this threat literally would be an absolute herculean task. And would it have the desired strategic effect?" said a former senior US defence official who asked not to be named. "Trump is almost struggling to come up with a new level or threat that he can say with words that will move the strategic needle more in favour of the US here."

A large-scale attack on Iran's power sector is more feasible than taking out every single bridge in the country, experts said.

A majority of Iran's power plants and refineries are located in three coastal provinces - Bushehr, Khuzestan and Hormozgan - on the Persian Gulf. Striking power plants in the region could deal the Iranian regime a significant blow, said Miad Maleki, a former senior US treasury official who led sanctions against Iran.

"You do anything to those three provinces, you cut the regime's access to oil revenue [and] its access to the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz," said Maleki, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy.

Vice-President JD Vance said that the US carried out airstrikes on military targets on Kharg Island, a key island in the Persian Gulf that handles roughly 90% of Iran's oil exports.

Speaking to reporters in Budapest on Tuesday, Vance said those strikes did not represent a change in Trump's strategy. He said negotiations with Iran would continue until Trump's deadline but warned that the US could inflict "much greater pain" on the country's economy.

"So they've got to know, we've got tools in our toolkit that we so far haven't decided to use. The president of the United States can decide to use them, and he will decide to use them, if the Iranians don't change their course of conduct."

The White House dismissed reports that Vance's comments contained any suggestion of a US nuclear strike against the Islamic republic.

Some civilian infrastructure has already been targeted. Iran's state media said on Tuesday that US-Israeli airstrikes targeted a bridge in the city of Qom. Last week Trump said the US bombed Iran's largest bridge.

It's unclear if the new wave of attacks Trump has threatened would be enough to force Tehran to come to the negotiating table. US and Iranian officials reportedly spoke directly on Tuesday after weeks of indirect talks failed to move the sides closer to a deal. Still, the countries remain far apart on major issues including the future of Iran's oil sector, nuclear programme and control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump said on Monday that his special envoy Steve Witkoff, son-in-law Jared Kushner and Vance were leading the talks. But a US official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Witkoff and Kushner are leading the day-to-day efforts and Vance would only be brought in if a deal is imminent.

"The Vice-President may be tagged in more directly if there's sufficient progress made by Witkoff and Jared," the US official said.

Trump may be betting the regime will feel pressure from Iran's population to strike a deal if the country is plunged into darkness by a widespread attack on the power grid.

But Iranians were already living with power outages before the war started in late February. The regime likely wouldn't view more blackouts as an incentive to negotiate with the US, Maleki said.

"This is not a wartime issue," he said. "The Iranian people are already dealing with a completely dysfunctional energy and power sector."

Furthermore, attacking Iran's power sector could complicate Trump's push to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has brought most oil tanker traffic in the waterway to a standstill, roiling the global oil market and causing prices to soar.

Trump hasn't made a strong case that the US is going to get what it wants by escalating the war, said Jason Campbell, a former Department of Defense official under former President Joe Biden and Trump.

Nearly six weeks into the war, the Iranian regime has shown it has a high pain threshold and won't easily cave to US demands, said Campbell, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

For Iran's leadership, Campbell said, the war "is an existential fight not just for the country but for the regime."