Trump asks: When will the Iranian people rise up... and fight?
After six months of a conflict that reached an impasse, the United States launched a new wave of attacks on Iran for the second consecutive day. Tehran responded with attacks on neighboring countries, while US sources revealed that Washington had shifted to a “tanker-for-tanker” policy in the Strait of Hormuz following the targeting of two Iranian tankers.
On Wednesday, Trump wrote, “Now that it is under US control, should we change the name of the Strait of Hormuz to the Trump Strait??? Like America itself, it will be +more exciting+ than ever!”
This marks Trump’s latest proposed geographical name change, coming a week after he ordered Lake Ontario to be renamed “Lake America” amid a trade war with Canada. The US president had previously renamed the Gulf of Mexico “Gulf of America” on the first day of his return to power in January 2025.
In a podcast on Lt. Dan, Trump stated that his country was forced to take military action against Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon. He noted that if the United States had not sent B-2 bombers a year ago (during the June 2025 war) to destroy its nuclear capabilities, Tehran would have been “two weeks away from possessing a nuclear weapon.”
He argued that Tehran’s possession of a nuclear weapon would have meant that “Israel would have disappeared, and the Middle East would have disappeared,” adding that Iran would have also targeted cities within the United States, describing the regime as “crazy.”
On Tuesday evening, the US president wrote on his platform, “Our position is now much better, with near-total control of the Strait of Hormuz and their economy completely collapsing... They are only waiting for what is inevitable.” He questioned, “When will the Iranian people rise up... and fight?”
Militarily, US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced in a statement that it bombed Iranian Revolutionary Guard targets on the night of Tuesday-Wednesday, including air defense systems, radar, naval facilities, mine-laying capabilities, and communication sites. This was in response to “the recent attacks launched by the Revolutionary Guard on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz and on US military personnel deployed in the region.”
US officials said approximately 100 targets were hit in the broadest US round of strikes since the resumption of direct confrontation.
According to Axios, the operation targeting the two tankers was part of a new policy approved by the US president, titled “tanker-for-tanker,” to respond to Iranian attacks against ships transiting the strategic strait, rather than limiting the targeting of Iranian tankers to preventing them from violating the blockade.
The broader plan discussed by Trump and his aides involved targeting the capabilities Iran periodically rebuilds around the Strait of Hormuz, a approach described by a US official as “mowing the grass.”
Tehran responded with attacks that affected neighboring countries. The IRGC stated that its ground forces carried out joint attacks using missiles and drones on US bases in Erbil, northern Iraq. Neither Baghdad nor Washington confirmed the occurrence of the attack.
The Jordanian military announced that its air defense systems engaged with 13 ballistic missiles that entered the Kingdom’s airspace, intercepting and destroying 10 of them, while three missiles fell in remote areas far from population centers.
A statement from the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Doha holds the “Islamic Republic of Iran full legal responsibility for these attacks and their resulting repercussions and consequences.”
While Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezaei stated that the United States would soon witness “Iran’s new strategy on the ground and in diplomacy, as well as in the face of economic sanctions,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed that Washington is tracking assets and foreign accounts linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in several countries, threatening to freeze them as part of Washington’s campaign to intensify financial pressure on Tehran.
Speaking in an interview with Fox Business on the sidelines of the G20 finance ministers’ meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, Bessent said that Washington had identified accounts held by the IRGC at credit firms in the British Virgin Islands, as well as luxury properties worth up to $100 million in various parts of the world.
He clarified that U.S. measures could target financial institutions, aircraft leasing companies, digital assets, and any entities dealing with the IRGC, warning that they could be cut off from access to the U.S. financial system and the U.S. dollar.
