Iran War Live Updates: Deadline Nears After Trump’s Threat to Wipe Out a ‘Whole Civilization’

Tehran1:57 a.m. April 8 Tel Aviv 1:27 a.m. April 8 Iran War Live Updates: Deadline Nears After Trump’s Threat to Wipe Out a ‘Whole Civilization’ With hours to go before President Trump’s 8 p.m. Eastern time deadline for Iran to agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face intense attacks, negotiators feverishly worked toward a deal. Pakistan, an intermediary, proposed a two-week cease-fire. - Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times - Amit Elkayam for The New York Times - Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times - Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times - Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times - Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times - Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times - Amit Elkayam for The New York Times - Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times - Reuters - Social media, via Reuters President Trump threatened on Tuesday to wipe out a “whole civilization” and the United States hit military targets on Iran’s main oil export hub, as the Trump administration ramped up pressure on Tehran to fully open the Strait of Hormuz or face devastating strikes on critical infrastructure within hours. The prime minister of Pakistan, which has been acting as an intermediary in the search for a peace deal, appealed to Mr. Trump to extend his 8 p.m. Eastern time deadline by two weeks “to allow diplomacy to run its course.” In a statement on social media, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called for Iran to open the strait for those two weeks, and for all parties to observe a cease-fire for that time. An Iranian official familiar with the matter said Iran was willing to accept the proposal, but the positions of the United States and Israel remained unclear. Mr. Trump is aware of Pakistan’s request and “a response will come,” the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement. A Fox News reporter, Jacqui Heinrich, wrote on social media that she had spoken briefly with the president, who told her, “right now we’re in heated negotiations,” but declined to elaborate. As the clock ticked down earlier on Tuesday, there were competing narratives about the state of negotiations, sowing confusion around the world. Iranian officials said that Iran had stopped engaging in indirect talks in response to Mr. Trump’s threat. But Mr. Sharif and an Israeli official later said talks were making progress; an Iranian official said Pakistan had redoubled its efforts after Iran withdrew, allowing discussions to continue. The United States and Israel both stepped up their attacks on Iran ahead of the 8 p.m. Eastern deadline Mr. Trump had set for Iran to allow unimpeded shipping through the strait, a key oil and gas transit route. American forces launched more than 90 strikes on Kharg Island, the oil export hub, early Tuesday, mostly hitting targets that had been struck before to ensure more damage, a U.S. military official said. He said that the United States was not yet targeting Iranian oil infrastructure on the island, which lies in the Persian Gulf off the country’s southern coast. On Tuesday morning, President Trump had threatened that if Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” adding that he hoped “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen” to avoid the attacks. The president had said at a news conference on Monday that if Iran did not end its effective blockade of the strait, every bridge in the country would be “decimated,” and every power plant would be “out of business.” As night fell in the Middle East, Iranians were bracing for the possibility of more strikes, while others were responding to the American threats with a mix of indifference, defiance, flight and bewilderment. Some Iranians on Tuesday formed human chains along bridges and around power plants across the country, videos and photographs posted by state and other local media showed. It’s unclear whether the demonstrations were spontaneous or planned by the government. Here’s what else we’re covering: Railways struck: The Israeli military said it had launched airstrikes on eight bridges across Iran, and warned Iranians not to ride railroads until 9 p.m. local time. Iranian state media reported that at least three people were killed when a railway bridge was hit in the central city of Kashan. Condemnation of Trump’s threat: Some commentators on the right are splitting from Mr. Trump, while some Republican lawmakers have expressed concern that the threat could cause the president to lose public support. Democrats forcefully condemned Mr. Trump, with a growing number calling for him to be removed from office. Death tolls: The Human Rights Activists News Agency said at least 1,665 civilians, including 244 children, had been killed in Iran as of Monday. Lebanon’s health ministry on Monday said more than 1,500 people had been killed in the latest fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. In attacks blamed on Iran, at least 50 people have been killed in Gulf nations. In Israel, at least 20 people had been killed as of Monday. The American death toll stands at 13 service members, with hundreds of others wounded. Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan said in a social media post on Tuesday evening that diplomacy to stop the war had taken a “step forward” from a “critical, sensitive stage.” The statement came after the prime minister of Pakistan, which has been acting as an intermediary in the search for a peace deal, appealed to President Trump to extend his deadline by two weeks. News Analysis It was a stunning threat that promised to eliminate Iranian civilization, delivered with all the casual callousness that has become President Trump’s preferred style of communication. “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” This is what passes as a normal Tuesday-morning update from the Trump White House: a warning of mass destruction and what international law would define as war crimes, blithely delivered on Truth Social, posted alongside ads for bullet-shaped pens, patriotic hats and a gala dinner at Mar-a-Lago. “However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?” Mr. Trump wrote in his message. “We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.” The message arrived two days after Mr. Trump marked Easter Sunday by calling on the Iranians to end its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” he wrote. In the minds of the president and his supporters, a post threatening mass extinction is all part of Mr. Trump’s chaotic negotiation style, intended to prompt an end to his self-inflicted conflict and persuade Tehran to open the strait. Even for Mr. Trump, who has a long history of comments that fly far beyond the pale, his latest comments bear the mark of an impulsive leader who is used to getting his way through coercion and unpredictability, but who is not getting his way now. Though Israel and the United States began striking Iran on Tuesday as Mr. Trump’s threats escalated, there were no indications that the U.S. military was moving the sort of weaponry that would allow Mr. Trump to carry out his threat. Striking civilian infrastructure could be a war crime under international law. Some of the president’s advisers see Mr. Trump’s escalating rhetoric as a negotiating tactic that suggests he is more interested in finding a way out of the war than following through with a devastating attack. Still, Alex Wellerstein, a historian who studies nuclear conflicts, said that even if Mr. Trump does not carry out the extent of his threat, the president’s violent rhetoric damages his credibility as a negotiator and his country’s standing in the world. “You’re talking about a world that largely increasingly sees the United States as unhinged and dangerous, and not a reliable partner,” he said, “where all of the countries that typically align with democracy and freedom are on the other side of the United States.” Some of Mr. Trump’s most fervent supporters have joined the usual chorus of critics. Tucker Carlson, the right-wing podcaster, said that the president’s Easter message had “shattered” the holiest day on the Christian calendar. “It is vile on every level,” Mr. Carlson said on his podcast. “It begins with a promise to use the U.S. military, our military, to destroy civilian infrastructure in another country, which is to say to commit a war crime, a moral crime against the people of the country, whose welfare, by the way, was one of the reasons we supposedly went into this war in the first place.” The president responded by calling Mr. Carlson a “low I.Q. person,” and continuing on with his war. Ever a reality television producer, Mr. Trump wants to program this war like he does everything else — through cliffhangers and wait-and-see diplomacy. As such, Mr. Trump has created an 8 p.m. Eastern deadline for Tehran to comply, according to Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary. “Only the president knows where things stand and what he will do,” she said in a statement. Later on Tuesday, Ms. Leavitt said that Mr. Trump was considering a plea by Pakistani intermediaries for the U.S. and Iran to declare a two-week cease-fire so diplomatic negotiations could continue. Americans have seen versions of this playbook before: Mr. Trump makes increasingly escalatory threats, secures some semblance of a deal and walks away declaring victory. In January, Mr. Trump threatened to send in U.S. forces to capture the Danish territory of Greenland. He settled for an agreement to increase the number of American troops there. With Iran, though, there is still little evidence that Mr. Trump is going to get what he wants. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesman for the Iranian military, has said that Iran would retaliate “crushingly and extensively” if its civilian infrastructure were attacked. And even if there is a cease-fire, Mr. Trump is far from achieving his larger strategic objectives. The president’s increasingly violent messaging betrays a degree of frustration that he has not gotten what he wanted after pushing back an earlier deadline to barrage the country’s infrastructure. His threats to level power plants and oil installations and bridges have seemed to have the opposite effect on some Iranians, who have formed human chains around points of infrastructure that support civilian life. Even some people who have supported Mr. Trump in the past see his strategy on Iran, to the extent that there is one, as damaging and dangerous. “Trump believes he is threatening Iran with destruction, but it is America that now stands in danger,” Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center who resigned in March, wrote on X. “If he attempts to eradicate Iranian civilization, the United States will no longer be viewed as a stabilizing force in the world, but as an agent of chaos — effectively ending our status as the world’s greatest superpower.” Several Republicans in Congress, who are absent from Washington during a two-week recess, criticized the president’s rhetoric, although many of them have stayed mum. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a close ally of Mr. Trump’s, left room for the possibility that Mr. Trump was posturing: “I hope and pray that President Trump is just using this as bluster.” Mr. Trump’s message also alarmed top Democrats, who quickly promised to force another vote on a resolution to rein in the use of the military in Iran. “This is an extremely sick person,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, wrote on X after Mr. Trump sent his threat. “Each Republican who refuses to join us in voting against this wanton war of choice owns every consequence of whatever the hell this is.” Other Democrats have called to remove Mr. Trump from office over his threats, with some calling for impeachment and others pointing to the 25th Amendment, which provides a process for a president to be stripped of power if he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” They were joined by Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former Republican representative who has shifted from being one of Trump’s staunchest allies to being one of his most vocal detractors. “25TH AMENDMENT!!!” she wrote on X. “Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness.” Tyler Pager, Michael Gold and Robert Jimison contributed reporting. Alarmed by President Trump’s threat to eliminate “a whole civilization” in Iran on Tuesday, more than a quarter of congressional Democrats have called for Trump’s removal from office, either through impeachment or by his cabinet stripping him of power through the 25th Amendment. Many raised concerns about the president’s soundness of mind and said his post to social media threatening widespread civilian destruction was evidence that he was not mentally fit to hold office. An Iranian military spokesman warned on Tuesday that if President Trump followed through on his threats of crippling attacks on Iran, the Iranian military would target infrastructure of the United States and its allies in ways that could deprive them of access to the region’s oil and gas for years. The warning came as the spokesman described a new wave of missile and drone strikes across the region, including U.S.-linked sites in the Persian Gulf, petrochemical facilities in Saudi Arabia tied to American companies, and multiple locations in Israel. Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that the country’s consulate in the Iraqi city of Basra had been stormed and sabotaged, calling it “an unacceptable and dangerous violation of diplomatic norms and conventions.” The ministry said it held Iraq responsible for the incident. Several people were killed in a house near Basra after a rocket attack coming from the direction of Kuwait, security officials told Reuters earlier. The Israeli military issued new evacuation warnings for the city of Tyre and its suburbs in southern Lebanon, where it has attacked Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia group. Representative Kevin Kiley, an independent who caucuses with Republicans, also weighed in on the escalating rhetoric, cautioning Trump against making good on his threats and urging for congressional oversight of the president’s actions. “The United States does not destroy civilizations. Nor do we threaten to do so as some sort of negotiating tactic. We should all desire a future of freedom, security, and prosperity for the people of Iran,” he said in a social media message, adding that “Congress has a responsibility to conduct oversight with respect to ongoing military operations and our obligations under both U.S. law and international agreements to which we are a signatory.” In a wave of new strikes targeting Iran’s infrastructure, Israel attacked petrochemical plants in Asaluyeh and Mahshahr, according to official statements on Iranian media. An Iranian official said an aluminum plant in Arak was also attacked. The strikes come amid intense diplomacy spearheaded by Pakistan to de-escalate tensions. Sharon S. Nazarian’s neighborhood in West Los Angeles is the largest community of Iranians outside of their home country. A few weeks ago, people there were dancing in the streets after President Trump reported that military strikes had killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the longtime Iranian leader. On Tuesday, the president’s ominous post to Truth Social, saying that “a whole civilization will die tonight” unless Iran meets his demands, left her fearful instead of joyous. “This only achieves his goal if the goal is to confuse the whole world,” said Ms. Nazarian, a philanthropist and political scientist whose Jewish family fled Iran nearly a half-century ago. She worried that Mr. Trump’s ultimatum would only embolden the current regime and endanger Iranian civilians. “I wish this president would talk less,” she said. Like Ms. Nazarian, more than half a million U.S. residents are at least partly of Iranian descent, according to census data. Many were members of oppressed minorities in Iran — Jews, Assyrians, Baha’i, Christians — who fled after the overthrow of the nation’s last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in 1979. Many have supported Mr. Trump’s efforts to bring about a regime change that might finally allow them to revisit their home. But in much of the Los Angeles community, colloquially known as Tehrangeles, the initial excitement has tempered. “What’s the end game here?” asked Nazanin Boniadi, a Tehran-born activist and actress who posted on social media that the president’s threat “empowers the regime, reinforces its propaganda, and betrays a people who have long been America’s natural allies.” Adrin Nazarian, a Los Angeles city councilman whose Christian Armenian family fled Iran in 1981, said Mr. Trump’s hostile response was going to inflict more damage on innocents. “You’re talking about a civilization that’s existed for more than 5,000 years, and you’re going to bomb it out of existence?” Mr. Nazarian said, adding, “You can’t keep up with him — it’s a threat a minute.” The National Iranian American Council, a Washington-based nonprofit, said that it was holding an emergency rally, along with about 20 other organizations, at the White House on Tuesday evening to protest President Trump’s rhetoric about the war. Responding to Trump’s statement that “a whole civilization” could be wiped out, the organization’s president, Jamal Abdi, said, “This is not ambiguous, threatening the destruction of a civilization is genocidal language.” He called the comments “a dangerous and unlawful escalation that puts millions of civilians at risk.” Russia and China on Tuesday vetoed a resolution at the United Nations Security Council that called for countries to cooperate in taking defensive action to open the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has closed in response to U.S. and Israeli attacks. The move effectively blocked U.N. authorization for the use of military force to address the maritime crisis. The resolution received 11 votes in favor, two votes against and two abstentions. China and Russia, both permanent members of the Council with veto powers, shot it down. Pakistan, which has been mediating between Iran and the U.S., abstained. The vote came just a few hours before President Trump’s 8 p.m. deadline for Iran to reopen the strait, a vital waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped. Mr. Trump had warned on Tuesday morning that “a whole civilization will be wiped out” if a deal was not reached. Bahrain, with the support of Arab countries in the Persian Gulf and the United States, had drafted and put forth the resolution after weeks of diplomatic negotiations. The text of the resolution went through at least five revisions and the language was watered down — from authorizing offensive military force to allowing only defensive actions to open the strait. “Failing to adopt this resolution sends the wrong signal to the world, a signal that the threat to international waters can pass without any decisive action by the international organization responsible for maintenance of international peace and security,” said Bahrain’s foreign minister, Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani. Bahrain, the only Arab member of the Council, is presiding over the Council this month. Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., condemned the rejection of the resolution, saying Bahrain’s request was not unreasonable given the economic and security upheaval caused by Iran’s actions. “It was a simple resolution: Iran must stop attacking the Gulf, stop threatening its neighbors, and reopen the Strait of Hormuz,” Mr. Waltz said. Russia and China said the resolution failed to state that the crisis was a result of U.S. and Israeli aggression against Iran, instead placing all of the blame on Iran. The Strait of Hormuz was open before Israel and the U.S. launched attacks on Iran on Feb. 28. Russia and China also said they opposed setting a “dangerous” legal precedent for resorting to force to settle disputes in the sea. Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s ambassador to the U.N., to the Council, said each paragraph of the proposed resolution contained “unbalanced, inaccurate and confrontational elements.” The resolution, he said, played into the hands of Mr. Trump’s threatening rhetoric against Iran. China’s ambassador to the U.N., Fu Cong, said that passing the resolution at a time when the United States is threatening the very survival of a civilization “would send the wrong message and have serious — very serious — consequences.” Iran’s ambassador to the U.N., Amir-Saeid Iravani, told the Council that his country’s actions “cannot be viewed in isolation from the broader context of ongoing aggression against its territory and sovereignty.” Residents of Tehran are fleeing the Iranian capital in one of the largest exoduses since the war began, according to four Iranians who made the journey north today. They are heading north to the shores of the Caspian Sea, fearing President Trump’s threat about striking power plants. Iran’s state media said traffic was now only one way to the north to accommodate the high volume of cars leaving Tehran on the mountain road connecting the capital to the north. “The road was packed,” said Mansour, a resident of Tehran who had left with his family. “It took us several more hours to get here. Everyone is afraid of what may happen tonight.” Democrats forcefully condemned President Trump’s threat to destroy “a whole civilization” in Iran on Tuesday, with a growing number calling for Mr. Trump to be removed from office and questioning his mental fitness for the presidency. The lawmakers broadly warned that sweeping military attacks by the United States on civilian targets would be war crimes and argued that Mr. Trump’s threat, made in a social media post, would only undermine attempts to end the conflict through diplomacy. “Intentionally destroying the power, water or basic infrastructure upon which tens of millions of civilians depend to punish the very civilians who suffer at the hands of the Iranian regime would constitute a war crime, a betrayal of the values this nation was founded on and a moral failure,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said in a joint statement with several senior Democratic senators. “It’s unconscionable to threaten the lives of so many people — grandparents, children, families — simply because they were born in Iran,” added Mr. Schumer and Senators Chris Coons of Delaware, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Brian Schatz of Hawaii. Mr. Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services committee, said in his own scathing statement that the president’s threat was “comparable to genocide” and a “criminal act.” And Mr. Reed, usually a measured voice, added that Mr. Trump “seems to have lost control” and “become as fanatical as the regime leaders in Tehran.” Many other lawmakers, many of them left-leaning, carried Mr. Reed’s alarm a step further, suggesting that Mr. Trump’s threats were grounds for Congress to impeach him or for the president’s cabinet to strip him of his powers through the 25th Amendment. “The president just threatened genocide,” Representative Sara Jacobs, Democrat of California, said in a post on social media. “The Joint Chiefs of Staff must disregard any such military orders that violate federal and international law. Republicans in Congress can’t hide anymore: we must consider all options — including impeachment — to stop Trump.” Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, called on Mr. Trump’s cabinet to invoke the constitutional amendment, which allows the vice president and members of the cabinet to declare that the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” “It’s clear the president has continued to decline and is not fit to lead,” Mr. Castro said on social media. Those calls for removal came from a fraction of congressional Democrats. But the growing outcry is a shift compared to much of Mr. Trump’s second term, when the party’s lawmakers have largely avoided such calls after two unsuccessful efforts to remove him during and immediately after his first term. Across both chambers, Democratic lawmakers cautioned that Mr. Trump’s ultimatum would only set back any talks to end the war, which has spiraled across the regional. “Threatening to destroy Iranian power plants and bridges is not a strategy, it is a war crime,” Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement. “At this critical moment, the United States must pursue immediate de-escalation and a coordinated diplomatic strategy with our allies.” Other House Democrats, including Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, pointed a finger at congressional Republicans, calling for lawmakers to “come back into session immediately and vote to end this reckless war of choice in the Middle East before Donald Trump plunges our country into World War III.” Republicans in Congress were largely silent after he said he would strike civilian targets if the Iranian government did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday evening. Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin and a close ally of President Trump, warned that the president would lose his support if he struck Iran’s civilian infrastructure, offering a rare public glimmer of unease among G.O.P. lawmakers as Mr. Trump escalates his threats against Tehran. “I do not want to see us start blowing up civilian infrastructure,” Mr. Johnson said Monday on the podcast “John Solomon Reports,” in an interview that took place the day before Mr. Trump warned that Iran’s “whole civilization will die.” After that warning, Mr. Johnson told The Wall Street Journal that Mr. Trump would forfeit his backing and it would be “a huge mistake,” if he carried out his threat to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages.” Still, Mr. Johnson left room for the possibility that Mr. Trump’s bellicose language might merely be strategic posturing: “I hope and pray that President Trump is just using this as bluster.” His words of caution came as Republicans, who are absent from Washington during a two-week congressional recess, have either stayed mum or rallied publicly in lock step with Mr. Trump on Iran, even as his escalating threats have drawn criticism from Democrats and concern from legal experts who say the moves he is forecasting could violate international law. Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, and Speaker Mike Johnson did not respond to requests for comment. But after Tuesday’s social media post in which Mr. Trump warned of striking Iran with enough force “never to be brought back again,” Senate Republicans’ official social media account warned that “Iran would be wise to take President Trump at his word,” adding that Tehran could choose “the easy way or the hard way.” With some commentators on the right balking at Mr. Trump’s warlike language, some of his allies in Congress have sought to allay fears that the president, who ran for office denouncing foreign wars, is plunging the United States into a prolonged one in the Middle East. “President Trump is trying to actually turn the temperature down,” Representative Pat Harrigan, Republican of North Carolina, said during an interview on Fox Business. Representative Jodey Arrington, Republican of Texas, cheered Mr. Trump’s aggressive posture, telling the network: “Thank God we have a commander in chief that is not full of empty rhetoric.” A few voices in the G.O.P. have gently urged a more cautious approach by Mr. Trump, including calling for Congress to play more of a role in the Iran conflict. In a lengthy post on X, Representative Nate Moran, Republican of Texas, said he had supported the president’s moves on Iran so far, but warned that the United States must conduct military operations “for just causes and through just and moral means.” “So let me be clear,” he wrote. “I do not support the destruction of a ‘whole civilization.’ That is not who we are, and it is not consistent with the principles that have long guided America.” And on Tuesday afternoon, Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, pushed back strongly on Mr. Trump’s social media post. “The President’s threat that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ cannot be excused away as an attempt to gain leverage in negotiations with Iran,” Ms. Murkowski, who is weighing a bid to force a vote in Congress to place parameters on the war, wrote on X. “Everyone involved — especially the President and Iran’s leaders — must de-escalate their unprecedented saber-rattling before it is too late.” Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska added to the emerging chorus of Republican unease with President Trump’s rhetoric on Iran, warning in a social media post against the kind of sweeping language that has defined the administration’s recent threats. While reaffirming that Iran’s government must be held accountable, she said the language “cannot be excused away as an attempt to gain leverage in negotiations with Iran.” On Tuesday, 10 vessels traversed the Strait of Hormuz, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. That figure is not the lowest since the war began; there were several days in March when no vessels passed through the vital waterway, the data show. About 150 vessels a day passed through the strait before the war. Hours before President Trump’s 8 p.m. deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or see its “whole civilization” end, U.S., Iranian, Israeli and other foreign officials offered varying accounts about the state of negotiations between Washington and Tehran. In one of the day’s few tangible signs of diplomatic activity, Pakistan’s prime minister, whose country has acted as a mediator, issued a public plea on Tuesday for Mr. Trump to extend the deadline. Three Iranian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive diplomacy, as did other diplomats who discussed the matter, said Iran had stopped engaging even in indirect talks through mediators with the Trump administration. While Iran left open the possibility that Pakistan could serve as a conduit if talks resumed, the response suggests that Mr. Trump’s dramatic threat, which one U.S. official said was intended to force Iranian concessions, may have backfired. But an Israeli official speaking on the condition of anonymity said talks were making progress. And on Tuesday afternoon, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan posted on social media that talks were “progressing steadily,” and had “the potential to lead to substantive results in near future.” Mr. Sharif publicly asked Mr. Trump to extend his deadline by two weeks and for Iran in turn to open the strait “as a goodwill gesture.” An Iranian official familiar with the matter said Iran was willing to accept the proposal, but the U.S. and Israeli positions were unclear. On Monday, Iran rejected a 45-day cease-fire plan offered by regional states including Pakistan. An Iranian official in Cairo told The Associated Press on Monday that Iran had insisted on guarantees that the U.S. military would not resume its attacks after any pause in fighting before Tehran would allow ships safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Referring to Mr. Sharif’s public offer, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that “the president has been made aware of the proposal, and a response will come.” The White House has otherwise offered little detail about which U.S. officials might be speaking with Iranians or intermediaries. One current and one former U.S. diplomat described the negotiations as disorganized and confusing. Adding to the fog is the fractured nature of Iran’s leadership, which has been decimated by U.S. and Israeli attacks. Negotiations have only become more difficult, U.S. officials say, as Iran’s surviving leaders avoid communications and meetings that might expose them to assassination. Even some diplomats from countries in the region were in the dark and asking their unofficial contacts for any information about the negotiations. Mr. Trump himself has depicted diplomacy with Iran as perplexing, writing on social media late last month that Iran’s negotiators were “very different and ‘strange.’” Ronen Bergman, Farnaz Fassihi and Edward Wong contributed reporting. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary of Britain, about Iran’s attacks in the Middle East in the war that the United States and Israel started, the State Department said. The diplomats talked about the Iranian military’s de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and “the need for international efforts to ensure shipping can move freely and energy supplies can reach global markets,” Tommy Pigott, the department’s deputy spokesperson, said in a statement. A growing number of prominent conservatives joined Democrats in condemning President Trump’s warning to Iran Tuesday that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if the country does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The threat prompted former representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, once one of Mr. Trump’s staunchest supporters but now a vocal critic, to call for Mr. Trump’s removal from office under the provisions of the Constitution’s 25th Amendment. “We cannot kill an entire civilization,” Ms. Greene wrote on social media. “This is evil and madness.” Tucker Carlson, the influential conservative commentator, focused particularly on the president’s rhetoric on Easter Sunday, when he profanely threatened the country’s infrastructure and promised the Iranian people would be “living in Hell” if the strait were not reopened. On his most recent podcast, Mr. Carlson called on U.S. officials to disobey the president’s orders if he calls to attack civilians. “Now it’s time to say no, absolutely not, and say it directly to the president, no,” Mr. Carlson said, echoing Democratic members of Congress whose similar remarks calling on members of the military to disobey illegal orders prompted Mr. Trump to demand investigations. Mr. Trump’s allies dubbed them the “seditious six.” The Justice Department tried and failed to indict the six members of Congress for their comments. Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin and often a strong supporter of the president, has escalated his warnings to Mr. Trump against making good on his recent threats toward Iran. “I do not want to see us start blowing up civilian infrastructure,” Mr. Johnson said on Monday during a podcast interview on “John Solomon Reports.” Later, Mr. Johnson told The Wall Street Journal that such an attack would be “a huge mistake” and that the president would lose support if he followed through on his threat to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages.” Representative Nathaniel Moran, Republican of Texas, has supported the president’s decisions on military intervention in Iran, but drew the line at Mr. Trump’s recent comments. “I do not support the destruction of a ‘whole civilization,’” Mr. Moran wrote on social media. “That is not who we are, and it is not consistent with the principles that have long guided America.” At least one former administration official was also openly critical of the president. “Trump believes he is threatening Iran with destruction, but it is America that now stands in danger,” said Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center. “If he attempts to eradicate Iranian civilization, the United States will no longer be viewed as a stabilizing force in the world, but as an agent of chaos — effectively ending our status as the world’s greatest superpower.” Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who helped Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, called Mr. Trump’s comments “unmoored” in an interview with NBC News. “This reads like a president who feels increasingly invincible — and that should concern everyone,” Ms. Ellis said. She continued: “When you pair that tone with an apparent belief that executive authority is unconstrained, it raises serious concerns about decision-making in one of the most volatile geopolitical contexts in the world.” Also joining the criticism of the president has been a chorus of far-right commentators and conspiracy theorists, including Alex Jones and Candace Owens, who echoed the call for Mr. Trump’s removal from office under the 25th Amendment. “He is a genocidal lunatic,” Ms. Owens wrote on social media. “Our Congress and military need to intervene. We are beyond madness.” Others warned that the president may be alienating the base of supporters that put him in the White House. “Trump would not have won the primary in 2016 had he run on Mitt Romney’s platform, nor would he have won the 2024 election by running on new wars,” Mike Cernovich, the conservative commentator who has promoted conspiracy theories in the past, wrote on social media on Sunday. “It’s silly to claim Trump is MAGA. He rode a cultural wave, only he had the personal will to do so, but the issues matter, too.” Trading on oil and financial markets was choppy on Tuesday as the status of U.S.-Iran negotiations remained uncertain, and President Trump’s deadline for devastating strikes on Iran drew nearer. The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, settled at $109.27 a barrel, down 0.5 percent for the day. U.S. oil settled at $112.95, a rise of 0.5 percent. The S&P 500, after dropping over 1 percent during the day, finished Tuesday up 0.08 percent. S&P 500 index How stocks are trading in the United States It took the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff two attempts to answer a question last week about whether President Trump’s threat to blow up Iran’s power infrastructure, oil wells and desalination plants would constitute a war crime. “Is there a way to do either of those things without, like, seriously jeopardizing or seriously harming civilians?” a reporter asked at a Pentagon news conference. “We’re always thinking about those considerations and develop options to be able to mitigate those risks pursuant to the normal practices that we do in the military,” Gen. Dan Caine replied. About 10 minutes later, General Caine conceded that he had not really answered the question, and tried again. He described the military he leads as the “most professional force in the world,” and spoke again about the “numerous processes and systems” the military relies on in war. He vowed that the force would “always strike lawful targets.” His muddled response, delivered in what has become his typical affectless monotone, reflected his difficult position as Mr. Trump escalates his threats not just against Iran’s leadership and its military, but the basic infrastructure that keeps its people alive. Civilian sites with military uses are considered legitimate targets, but the kinds of strikes Mr. Trump has threatened over the last two weeks would in most cases be considered a war crime under international law. Mr. Trump reiterated those warnings on Tuesday morning, vowing to destroy Iran if its leaders did not open the Strait of Hormuz by 8 p.m. in Washington. “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” he wrote in a social media post. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” As the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Caine is not in the chain of command, which runs from Mr. Trump to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Adm. Brad Cooper, the leader of U.S. Central Command. He does not have the power to move forces around the battlefield. But as the principal military adviser to the president and the military’s highest ranking and most visible officer, he has powerful obligations to the troops he leads. He is charged with defending the military’s professional, nonpartisan ethos and safeguarding the honor of the more than two million active duty, National Guard and reserve troops who serve under him. “He absolutely has responsibilities to the institution,” said Kori Schake, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who has written extensively about civil military relations. “Military leaders also have constituents, and they’re the Americans we’re putting in harm’s way.” These days, General Caine is in an especially precarious spot. The president’s first-term defense secretaries — Jim Mattis and Mark T. Esper — often resisted or ignored orders from Mr. Trump that they viewed as ill-advised or illegal, drawing the president’s ire. Both were replaced. By contrast, Mr. Hegseth has complained repeatedly about “stupid rules of engagement” that tie the U.S. military’s hands, and has questioned whether the United States should follow the Geneva Conventions and other international law governing war. “What if we treated the enemy the way they treated us?” Mr. Hegseth asked in “The War on Warriors,” his 2024 book. “Would that not be an incentive for the other side to reconsider their barbarism?” General Caine has kept a low public profile in his first year as chairman, and has earned the trust of Mr. Trump. The former Air Force F-16 fighter pilot and Pentagon liaison to the C.I.A. is often described as the military’s Trump whisperer — its main interlocutor with the president on operational matters. On Monday, Mr. Trump paused during a stream of escalating threats to repeat his oft-told and somewhat apocryphal story of his initial 2018 meeting with General Caine in Iraq. “He was able to take out ISIS in four weeks, instead of the four-year projection that was given to me by other, much lesser generals,” Mr. Trump recalled. “I said, ‘You know, if I ever do this again, that’s going to be the head of my Joint Chiefs of Staff.’” In White House meetings leading up to the Iran war, General Caine has underscored that the conflict would be much more difficult than other recent operations, such as the strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites last year and the capture of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela in January, military officials said. But he did not weigh in on the larger policy question of whether Mr. Trump should launch the war. General Caine, in his quiet way, has at times seemed to push back on some of Mr. Hegseth’s moves to reshape the force by firing senior officers, such as Gen. Randy George, the Army chief of staff who was dismissed last week. Shortly after General George was removed without explanation, General Caine’s office released a statement praising the Army officer “for his decades of steadfast service to our nation.” “General George and his family have consistently answered the nation’s call with honor and dedication,” the statement read. “We are profoundly thankful to General George and his wife, Patty, for their many years of sacrifice and devotion.” Some observers in the Pentagon saw the message as a quiet statement of disapproval with the way the Army chief had been treated. “It has to be excruciating for the military leaders to have their civilian superiors willfully destroying the values that make the institution,” Ms. Schake said. When it comes to speaking out on operational matters — even in private — General Caine must walk a fine line. He has his own uniformed military legal adviser who can warn him about the legality of U.S. military conduct in Iran. Adm. Cooper, who oversees forces in the Middle East, also has dozens of military lawyers who can help him assess risk and the legality of strikes. General Caine is also responsible for helping Mr. Trump understand how strikes on power plants, bridges and civilian infrastructure could be viewed by allies in Europe and Asia, as well as adversaries. The U.S. military’s record regarding the laws of war is far from spotless. But for decades, it has been the mainstream view within the military that American troops, who are generally the best trained and equipped in the world, accrue an advantage by adhering to the Geneva Conventions and other international laws. Allies would be more willing to work with U.S. troops, who would be more likely to retain the support of the American people if their actions were seen as legal and moral. Mr. Trump’s threats of widespread destruction in Iran are certain to raise doubts among military leaders about whether the president and senior officials in his administration share their view. General Caine’s responsibilities also differ from those of other senior leaders in the White House, and even the Pentagon. “The chairman is not just a military adviser,” said retired Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, a former top aide to Pentagon civilian and military leaders. “He’s the personification of the U.S. military, the human representative of everyone who wears the uniform and their families.” But even in that role, there are limits to General Caine’s power and influence. The chairman cannot function as “the single person protecting the republic,” said Peter D. Feaver, a national security aide under President George W. Bush during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “He can be and should be an important, sober, nonpartisan voice,” Mr. Feaver said. But his arguments will carry the day only if they are reinforced by others in the administration or by the president’s powerful allies in Congress. “Expecting the chairman to ‘save us’ is just another form of the peculiarly American debility that says: ‘This problem is too great for us to handle; let’s ask the military to handle it,’” Mr. Feaver said. Representative Nathaniel Moran of Texas is the latest Republican to publicly express concern over President Trump’s suggestion that the United States could bomb Iran “into the Stone Age,” adding to a small but growing group within the party uneasy with the president’s rhetoric.“Let me be clear: I do not support the destruction of a ‘whole civilization,’” Mr. Moran wrote in a social media post. “That is not who we are, and it is not consistent with the principles that have long guided America.” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan called on President Trump to extend his deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by two weeks, saying diplomatic efforts to end the war are “progressing steadily, strongly and powerfully with the potential to lead to substantive results in near future.” He called on all warring parties to observe a two-week cease-fire to allow for negotiations, in a message on X, and asked Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz during that the same period as a goodwill gesture. Pakistan has positioned itself as a key intermediary in the efforts to end the war, facilitating talks and relaying proposals between Iran and the United States. Pope Leo XIV, addressing reporters on Tuesday evening in Italy, renewed the calls for peace that he has been making amid the war in the Middle East, asking “all people of goodwill to always search for peace and not violence, to reject war, especially a war which many people have said is unjust, which is continuing to escalate and which is not resolving anything.” He also alluded to a statement President Trump made on Tuesday about wiping out a “whole civilization” without naming the American leader, saying, “Today, as we all know, there has also been this threat against the entire people of Iran. And this is truly unacceptable! There are certainly issues of international law here, but even more, it is a moral question concerning the good of the people as a whole, in its entirety.” The United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, said that on Tuesday evening the Israeli military detained one of its peacekeepers “after blocking a logistics convoy.” The peacekeeper was released within an hour after top UNIFIL officials intervened, UNIFIL said, but it noted that “any detention of a United Nations peacekeeper is a blatant violation of international law” and called for “full respect” of their protected status and their freedom of movement. The United Nations human rights chief, Volker Türk, on Tuesday condemned “the tirade of incendiary rhetoric being used in the Middle East war.” Though he included “all parties” in his condemnation, he specifically noted “the latest threats to annihilate a whole civilization” and to bomb civilian infrastructure, a clear allusion to recent statements by President Trump. “This is sickening,” Türk said. Deliberately attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime under international law, he noted. “Carrying through on such threats amounts to the most serious international crimes,” he said. A vaguely worded warning from the Trump administration on Tuesday said that hackers backed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps had begun a series of cyberattacks on water and energy systems across the United States, presumably in retaliation for American and Israeli strikes over the past five weeks. But the warning, issued by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA, did not name specific American facilities that had been struck or say whether any damage had been done. It said only that the attacks were focusing on equipment made by a major American producer of computer controllers, in an effort to make government agencies and utilities lock down their systems before the Iranian hackers can disrupt more systems. The report was issued in conjunction with the F.B.I., the National Security Agency and the Energy Department, among other government agencies, and said that the purpose of the Iranian-affiliated attacks was “to cause disruptive effects within the United States.” Most of the equipment targeted by the group, the report said, were “programmable logic controllers” made by Rockwell Automation, which turns out a widely used line of what are known as Allen-Bradley controllers. The notice urged utilities and government agencies to make sure none of those controllers were connected to the web. The report did not mention the largest producer of such controllers, Siemens. When the United States and Israel conducted a sophisticated attack on Iran’s nuclear centrifuges 16 years ago, it reached the systems through Siemens controllers. Iran created its own offensive cyberattack groups shortly thereafter. President Trump has attacked the organization’s election security operations since it declared, in 2020, that the presidential election was one of the most secure ever run in the United States and rejected Mr. Trump’s baseless claims of fraud. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s director general, on Tuesday echoed earlier warnings from the International Atomic Energy Agency against continued strikes near Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant. “Such actions could lead to a severe radiological accident, with serious and long-term health consequences for people now and for generations to come, while also harming the environment across Iran, the region, and beyond,” he said. On Monday, the I.A.E.A. confirmed the impacts of military strikes close to the plant, which it described as “an operating plant with large amounts of nuclear fuel,” saying hits “could cause a severe radiological accident.” “I’d love to keep that a secret,” Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday when President Trump pressed him in front of a room packed with reporters to disclose how many people were sent to rescue an American airman shot down over Iran. But the president, who was breathlessly recounting the details of the operation as though it was the script of an action-adventure film, ignored the general and revealed: “It was hundreds.” The eagerness on the part of Mr. Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to publicly recount the complex rescue operation stands in stark contrast to their approach to a Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian girls’ elementary school that killed at least 175 people, most of them children. The Pentagon has so far refused to provide a public accounting. A preliminary military investigation into the deadly attack on Feb. 28 found that the United States was responsible for the killings, appearing to confirm a Times visual investigation that found that American forces were most likely to have carried it out. But the secretary has repeatedly refused to answer questions about the strike, and Mr. Trump early on sought to sidestep blame. On Tuesday, more than two dozen Senate Democrats demanded that the Armed Services Committee open its own bipartisan investigation and hold a public hearing on the findings. The school strike could be “remembered as one of the most devastating and tragic errors in modern American military history,” the Democratic senators wrote to the Republican chairman of the committee, Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi. They called on him to carry out a “thorough investigation of this incident in a transparent manner for the preservation of our military’s integrity and reputation.” “The United States’ global reputation is tied to our adherence to rules of engagement and laws of war,” the senators added. “Failure to follow these rules and laws risks hardening our adversaries’ resolve.” Democrats in Congress have for weeks demanded accountability and for the Trump administration to explain how the civilian casualties occurred when the building struck had been clearly identifiable as a school from publicly available satellite imagery. They have requested that the Pentagon inform lawmakers how the target was identified, whether artificial intelligence had been used in the attack, and the steps taken by the administration during the war to follow the laws of armed conflict and mitigate civilian harm. But the Pentagon said in recent days that the investigation into the attack on the school remained ongoing, and that it would share the findings with Congress only once it was completed. House Democrats who had also pressed for more information on the Tomahawk strike said the Defense Department’s unwillingness to engage lawmakers alarmed by the civilian deaths was “completely unacceptable.” “The American people deserve transparency and accountability,” Representatives Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, Jason Crow of Colorado and Sara Jacobs of California said in a joint statement. “We must do more to protect civilians in combat zones, in accordance with U.S. laws, international commitments, and our values of human dignity.” From the outset of the war, Mr. Hegseth has reveled in the fact that “Operation Epic Fury" would have, in his words, “no stupid rules of engagement,” and that under his leadership, the might of the U.S. military could be unleashed on the enemy without constraints. The president has threatened that “all Hell will reign down” on Iran, disregarding that striking Iranian schools and universities, power plants, bridges and other civilian infrastructure would likely amount to war crimes under international law. On Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump warned that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if a deal is not reached with Iran.