00:00Now bring in our international affairs commentator, Douglas Herbert.
00:03So, Douglas, this ultimatum by President Trump, does he realize what he's threatening to do?
00:09And with this, has he backed himself into a corner?
00:12Well, he knows what he's saying, but it's unlikely that he's really done a deep dive on the strategic thinking
00:17about what it really means,
00:19the implications, what Iran's energy infrastructure actually looks like when he says he'll obliterate it.
00:24Look, the context here is a couple of days ago, March 20th, Trump was facing reporters and he said,
00:30quote of Iran, I think we've won.
00:31We've heard him having talked about obliterating Iran's Navy, its Air Force.
00:36The fact that he is now given this 48-hour ultimatum to destroy its energy infrastructure
00:40seems that he needs to destroy more, even though it's already destroyed.
00:45He's flailing out because the strategy, the total obliteration strategy, the we've destroyed everything,
00:51we have degraded and decimated everything they could throw at us strategy,
00:55clearly isn't working because Iran keeps throwing stuff right back at them in their face.
01:00What I don't think, or at least it doesn't seem that he is given too much thought to,
01:05is the fact that among the hundreds of power plants and critical infrastructure,
01:09the fossil fuel, the waste energy plants, the hydroelectric plants in Iran,
01:13dotted throughout the country over 400 of these types of sort of power stations.
01:17You also have the Mideast's first real civilian nuclear power plant, the Boucher power plant.
01:23Development on it started way back in the 70s, originally with German companies.
01:27It was cut off during the Islamic Revolution in 79.
01:30Later on, it was built with Russian technical assistance.
01:33And it's been online basically since 2011.
01:36Does he realize that this threat could potentially encompass a nuclear facility on Iranian territory?
01:44Does he know the potential consequences of that?
01:46Does he know how to avoid jeopardizing in any way, making sure projectiles do not hit a nuclear plant?
01:52And it's an interesting question to ask in light of the fact that the U.S., in the case of
01:57Ukraine,
01:57with the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, a civilian nuclear facility there,
02:02the U.S. has been very much out there trying to put forward suggestions as to how to make sure
02:07that plant is protected from the eventuality of being blown up by the Russians or attacked by the Russians.
02:14The Zaporizhia plant essentially has been occupied by the Russian forces
02:18since their full-fledged invasion in 2022, shortly after that invasion.
02:22And there, the U.S. has been very concerned about nuclear propriety
02:26and making sure that everything basically goes by the book.
02:29I'll just note, under the Geneva Convention's international treaties,
02:34it is basically prohibited attacks on objects that basically help ensure the survival of the civilian population.
02:43That is prohibited.
02:44So, presumably, this type of attack, this type of bluff, this type of threat,
02:48if really carried out, could, could be a violation, a contravention of the Geneva Conventions.
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