By Kevin Curry in News — 07 Apr 2026

I Don't Want to Exterminate an Entire Civilization Tonight, But If I Have to by 8 P.M., That's Really on Them

"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen." — President Donald Trump, Tuesday morning

Look, I want to be very clear about something: I am a reasonable diplomat. A reluctant warrior. Someone who believes deeply in the peaceful resolution of conflicts through dialogue, mutual understanding, and firm 8 p.m. deadlines for total capitulation or else we exterminate 80 million people.

I've spent all week trying to avoid this. Do you think I want to obliterate an ancient civilization that's existed for thousands of years? Do you think I enjoy setting specific evening time slots for potential genocide? I have dinner plans at 9:30. This is incredibly inconvenient for me.

But Iran has left us no choice by closing the Strait of Hormuz during a war they're involved in. (A war that may or may not have something to do with us, but that's beside the point.) They're disrupting global oil supplies, which is causing prices to fluctuate—and by "fluctuate," I mean skyrocket to historic levels, but let's not get bogged down in semantics when we're talking about the potential erasure of Persian culture from human history.

Some critics—and by critics, I mean that New York Times reporter who had the audacity to ask me about the President's social media post where he wrote "open the f----- Strait, you crazy bastards"—have suggested that our approach lacks diplomatic nuance. This is part of a disturbing "pattern," according to the Times, of "answering fair questions with inaccurate attacks." But you know what's really inaccurate? Suggesting that giving a sovereign nation twelve hours to surrender completely or face annihilation is anything other than extremely generous.

Twelve hours! Do you know how long that is? That's a whole work day, plus lunch. That's more than enough time for "something revolutionarily wonderful" to occur, as the President so eloquently put it. (Though I'll admit, the bar for "revolutionarily wonderful" does seem to be set at "agree to all our demands immediately or your entire civilization ends," but again, we're being very reasonable here.)

Senator Lindsey Graham called this a "defining moment," and he's absolutely right. It defines us as people who set firm boundaries with clear consequences. Yes, those consequences involve what the Senator described as a "massive military attack" that would kill tens of millions of people and destroy thousands of years of art, architecture, literature, and human achievement, but you have to admit: we were very clear about our expectations. We even gave them until 8 p.m. EDT specifically, so there's no confusion about time zones.

Some bleeding hearts might say, "But what about diplomacy? What about negotiations? What about considering the complex geopolitical factors at play?" To which I respond: We ARE being diplomatic. We're using our words. We're expressing our needs clearly. "Open the Strait or we'll kill everyone" is a complete sentence with a subject, verb, and conditional clause. That's more grammatically sound than most international treaties.

And before you accuse me of warmongering, let me remind you that I explicitly said "I don't want that to happen." Those were my exact words this morning. I don't WANT to participate in the erasure of a civilization that gave us algebra, poetry, and the concept of human rights. (Well, the historical Persian Empire's version, anyway, but still.) It's just that if they don't do exactly what we say by a arbitrary deadline we set unilaterally, then really, what choice do we have?

This is actually Iran's fault when you think about it. They're forcing us to threaten them with extinction. They're making us be the bad guys by not immediately surrendering to all our demands. It's really quite manipulative of them, and honestly, they should be ashamed.

Meanwhile, Vice President Vance is spending his week supporting Viktor Orbán in Hungary—a leader who believes the EU is a greater threat than Russia, which shows you the kind of clear-eyed, rational thinking we value in our allies. If Iran had simply aligned themselves with autocrats who share our values, maybe we wouldn't be in this position.

But here we are. It's now 7:45 p.m., and I'm watching the clock, hoping against hope that Iran will see reason and capitulate completely to the demands of a nation that just threatened to end their entire civilization via social media. Because if they don't, and if the worst happens, I want everyone to know: this was never what I wanted.

I just wanted them to do exactly what we said, when we said it, or face total annihilation. Is that really so much to ask?

(Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to make sure my 9:30 reservation is still good. Assuming, of course, that we're not busy tonight committing what would technically qualify as the largest mass casualty event in human history. But let's stay optimistic.)

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