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On Monday, Iran issued a stern warning that it would target electrical plants across the Middle East should US President Donald Trump proceed with his threat to attack power stations within the Islamic Republic. Iran also threatened to lay mines throughout the entire Persian Gulf in the event of an invasion.
This warning from Tehran poses a significant risk to both the electricity and water supplies of the Gulf Arab states. These nations, mostly desert landscapes, rely heavily on power stations that are closely integrated with desalination plants, which are essential for providing their drinking water.
In a show of defiance, Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency released a list of such critical facilities, notably including the nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates. The tension escalated over the weekend when Iran launched missiles aimed at Dimona in Israel, a location near a site that is central to Israel’s long-suspected nuclear weapons program. Fortunately, the Israeli facility emerged unscathed from the missile attack.
In response, Israel initiated further military action on Monday, conducting strikes on the Iranian capital. The Israeli government announced it had “begun a wide-scale wave of strikes” targeting infrastructure in Tehran, though they did not provide immediate details on the extent of these operations.
Tehran says it will mine Persian Gulf if invaded
The situation has heightened concerns in Tehran regarding the possible deployment of US Marines to the region. Iran’s Defense Council has issued a strong warning against any invasion, signaling the potential for further escalation in this volatile standoff.
“Any attempt by the enemy to target Iran’s coasts or islands will, naturally and in accordance with established military practice, lead to the mining of all access routes … in the Persian Gulf and along the coasts,” it said in a statement.
The US has been trying to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, to energy shipments. Iran has shut the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped along with other important commodities, in response to US and Israeli strikes.
A trickle of ships has been getting through the strait and Iran insists it remains open — just not to the US, Israel or their allies.
The Marines could come ashore to seize either islands or territory in Iran to support that mission. Israel also has suggested its ground forces could take part in the war.
Trump and Tehran exchange threats
Tehran’s signal is part of a back and forth series of threats that escalated this weekend with Trump saying in a social media post that if Tehran didn’t open the strategic waterway to all ships, the United States would “obliterate” Iran’s power plants.
He gave Tehran a 48-hour deadline that expires late Monday, Washington time, further raising the stakes of the ongoing war with Iran that has already disrupted global energy supplies, sending natural gas and gasoline prices soaring.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said Monday that if the US did that, Iran would respond by hitting power plants in all areas that supply electricity to American bases, “as well as the economic, industrial and energy infrastructures in which Americans have shares.”
“Do not doubt that we will do this,” the Guard said in a statement read on Iranian state television.
The Fars news agency, which is close to the Revolutionary Guard, published a list of such sites in what appeared to be a veiled threat, including desalination plants as well as the UAE’s Barakah nuclear power plant, which has four reactors out in the western deserts of the country near its border with Saudi Arabia. The judiciary’s Mizan news agency also published the list.
Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf also said Iran would then consider vital infrastructure across the region — including energy and desalination facilities critical for drinking water in Gulf nations — legitimate targets.
Oil prices up more than 50% since start of the war
Oil prices remained stubbornly high in early trading, with the price of Brent crude, the international standard at around $112 a barrel, up nearly 55% since Israel and the US started the war on Feb. 28 by attacking Iran.
“No country will be immune to the effects of this crisis if it continues to go in this direction,” said Fatih Birol, the head of the Paris-based International Energy Agency.
He told Australia’s National Press Club in Canberra on Monday that the crisis in the Middle East has had a worse impact on energy markets than the two oil shocks of the 1970s and the Russia-Ukraine war combined.
Jorge Moreira da Silva, a senior United Nations official, said the world has already seen a ripple effect, including “exponential price hikes in oil, fuel and gas,” having a far reaching impact on millions, primarily in Asian and African developing countries.
“There is no military solution,” he said.
The war has also caused wild fluctuations in global stock markets as traders grow increasingly concerned about a world energy crisis and other issues.
US commander warns Iranians civilians
United States Central Command chief Adm. Brad Cooper claimed in an interview aired Monday that Iran was launching missiles and drones from populated areas, and suggested those areas would be targeted.
“You need to stay inside for right now,” Cooper told Iranian civilians in the interview with the Farsi-language satellite network Iran International aired early Monday.
“There will be a clear signal at some point, as the president has indicated, for you to be able to come out.”
In his first one-on-one interview since the war started, Adm. Cooper said the campaign against Iran is “ahead or on plan” and that the US and Israel were targeting infrastructure and manufacturing facilities to destroy Iran’s capabilities to rebuild its military.
“It’s not just about the threat today,” he said. “We’re eliminating the threat of the future, both in terms of the drones, the missiles as well as the navy.”
He suggested Iran could bring a quick end to the war if it stopped firing back, but did not say whether that would prompt Israel and the US to relent before all infrastructure targets have been destroyed.
Iran’s death toll in the war has surpassed 1,500, its health ministry has said. In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian strikes. More than a dozen civilians in the occupied West Bank and Gulf Arab states have been killed in strikes.
In Lebanon, authorities say Israeli strikes targeting Iran-linked militia Hezbollah have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced more than 1 million. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel.