US President Donald Trump has threatened to wipe out Iran’s “whole civilisation” and signalled putting a new regime in power as the deadline for his 48-hour ultimatum closes in on Tuesday (April 7) at 8 pm EST — which is 5.30 am IST on April 8.
“A Whole Civilisation Will Die Tonight. I Don’t Want That To Happen, But It Probably Will,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. The war in West Asia is on its sixth week now.
Two days ago, Trump had reminded Iran that a 10-day pause on targeting Iran’s energy infrastructure was soon coming to an end and threatened to unleash “hell” if it does not open the Strait of Hormuz, which serves as a critical waterway for global oil and energy shipping.
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Iran had shut down the waterway, which facilitates shipping of about 20 million barrels a day, soon after the US and Israel carried out a coordinated attack on Iran on February 28, killing its former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and triggering a month-long war in the region.
His latest post on Tuesday morning also hinted at a new regime in Iran. “A Wonderful Thing Can Happen With New Regime. We Will Find Out Tonight,” he wrote, causing US market futures to slip.
Contracts on the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid about 0.6% and 0.4%, respectively. Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.8% undoing Monday’s end on positive note.
Some respite had come the previous day in the form of a peace proposal Pakistan and other regional leaders extended to Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff.
Earlier on Tuesday, Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan Reza Amiri Moghadam said its mediating efforts reached a “critical, sensitive stage.”
On the flip side, there’s also the chance that the scope of the war widens beyond just West Asia. Iran Revolutionary Guards said it had exercised “great restraint” so far, warning it would attack US allies beyond the region if the US crosses “red lines.”
“The Revolutionary Guards once again declare that if the American terrorist army crosses the red lines, our response will go beyond the region,” it said in a statement on April 7.
“America’s regional partners should also know that until today, we have exercised great restraint for the sake of good neighbourliness and have had some reservations in choosing targets for retaliation, but all these reservations have since been removed,” it said.
The Gulf states have been caught in the crossfire over the past month as Iran continued to retaliate.
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Iran’s Ambassador to Kuwait Mohammad Toutounji appealed to the Gulf states to use all capabilities to avoid “tragedy” as Trump’s D-Day threat looms large.
“We hope that the countries in the region will use all their diplomatic and political capabilities to prevent such a tragedy from befalling the region,” Toutounji told AFP.
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(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)
First Published: Apr 7, 2026 6:58 PM IST
