The Daily Populous Monday April 6th, 2026 morning edition
Authored by inews.co.uk and submitted by theipaper

close Cancel email WhatsApp link share Share bookmark Save

Donald Trump threw Washington into disarray this weekend. The endlessly accessible US leader disappeared from public view, sending social media speculation into overdrive.

US media knew he had not travelled to Mar-a-Lago in Florida, nor to his golf club in New Jersey. Reporters dispatched to the Walter Reed National Medical Centre in Bethesda could find no evidence of a widely rumoured emergency presidential transfer there.

The speculation was only quelled when the eventual posting of a US Marine outside the Oval Office indicated that Trump was at work. We now know he was personally monitoring the desperate and daring military operation to rescue a missing Air Force colonel stranded behind enemy lines in Iran.

New Feature In Short Quick Stories. Same trusted journalism.

For Trump, the rescue of the service member – proclaimed by the President to be “one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in U.S. History” – failed to disguise the fact that in shooting down an F-15 fighter jet, the Iranian regime revealed the extent of the lies Americans have been told about the military campaign’s success.

The US President has now threatened to move into a new phase of war (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty)

Over the past five weeks, the public has been repeatedly assured by the President and his top aides that Iran’s military has been “decimated” and “obliterated”. Only last Wednesday in his prime-time address to the nation, Trump insisted that “we have all the cards. They have none.”

The President, who has claimed to have forced “regime change” in Iran even though the country’s fundamentalist government remains in place, told Americans “they have no anti-aircraft equipment. Their radar is 100 per cent annihilated. We are unstoppable as a military force.”

But increasingly mired in the beginnings of what threatens to become one of the “forever wars” that Trump vowed never to spark, the President – cornered and revealed by weekend events – chose to go for broke.

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” he posted on Truth Social on Sunday. “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F**kin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

It came a day after Trump warned Tehran that “Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign [sic] down on them”, a message that he ended with the phrase “Glory be to GOD!”, underscoring the right-wing Christian nationalism that appears to be driving the American military endeavour, despite the country’s constitutional separation of church and state.

Top aides have privately told Trump in recent days that civilian infrastructure in Iran such as power-generating facilities and bridges are legitimate military targets, according to The Wall Street Journal. Some Trump administration officials are calling this new phase of war “Operation Epic Fury 2”.

On Friday, Iran rejected proposals for a negotiated settlement in the conflict, a moment that Trump had already signalled would trigger a scorched-earth response by US forces.

In Wednesday’s televised address, Trump proposed to “hit each and every one of their electricity generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously”. He also threatened to attack the country’s oil infrastructure (“we could hit it and it would be gone”), although that move would run directly counter to his plan to take control of the country’s oil as part of a Venezuela-style, post-war settlement.

Last month, Trump also threatened to target Iran’s desalination plants. Such a move would, according to Human Rights Watch, constitute a war crime and leave the US at risk of being targeted by the Iranians at the International Court of Justice in The Hague as well as on the battlefield.

Trump may also be tempted to approve a ground deployment in Iran that would put US troops at even greater risk. Plans have been drawn up for a possible raid to seize control of Kharg Island, the port through which 90 per cent of Iranian oil is loaded aboard tankers before sailing towards the Strait of Hormuz. It is also reported that the President has considered a boots-on-the-ground operation to recover Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium that he claimed had been “completely obliterated” in “Operation Midnight Hammer” last July, but now concedes remains in the regime’s possession.

All of these calculations come at a time when public support for the war is slipping. In the latest CNN poll conducted before the weekend’s dramatic rescue, 66 per cent of voters expressed disapproval of the conflict. A Reuters/Ipsos survey found 86 per cent of the public are concerned about the risk posed to US military lives as the war intensifies. Any boots-on-the-ground operation could see both of those numbers grow.

But even an airborne intensification of US military resolve carries further risks, with Iran proving on Friday that it retains missiles that can still down fighter jets. To rescue the single, stranded US Air Force colonel, required the deployment of hundreds of US special forces and dozens of aircraft and helicopters flying over southern Iran. Commandos who participated in the ground operation came under enemy fire, again illustrating that Iran still has more military capacity than the White House cares to admit.

In reality, the regime’s capacity to shoot down the F-15 (estimated replacement cost: $65m), was just the latest success Tehran has enjoyed on the battlefield. Also on Friday, an A-10 Warthog attack aircraft (estimated replacement cost: $19m) crashed in the Persian Gulf after reportedly being struck by Iranian forces. At least 16 MQ-9 Reaper drones (estimated replacement cost: $30m apiece) have also been brought down by the Iranians since “Operation Epic Fury” was ignited by Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 28 February.

Trump is now stuck between a rock and a hard place. He wants to find an off-ramp from the conflict, but Iran is not granting him that opportunity. With his back against the wall, he may wade deeper into war, but simultaneously into a political no man’s land back at home.

Sirvaleen on April 5th, 2026 at 17:15 UTC »

I'm more inclined to read a toothpick's instruction manual than an article whose title starts with "Trump says.."

bot_exe on April 5th, 2026 at 17:15 UTC »

Only took a month to go from giving them freedom to giving them hell

softDisk-60 on April 5th, 2026 at 15:19 UTC »

Trump will give them 5 more days because market is open