Trump Threatens to Bomb the “F****** S***” Out of Iran After US Base Strike

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the U.S. is going to “beat” the “f****** s***” out of Iran, in a chilling new threat of escalations as the war spirals out of control and engulfs more regional conflicts.

“We’re going to beat the f****** s*** out of them,” Trump told Fox’s Trey Yingst. It’s unclear if Trump censored himself, or if the outlet censored his words. “We’ll be hitting them hard,” Trump reportedly told Fox’s correspondent. “They’re going to get a beating.”

The threat was in response to Iran firing missiles at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, U.S. Central Command’s (CENTCOM) headquarters in the country. All of the missiles were intercepted, and no casualties were reported.

CENTCOM and U.S. outlets framed the attack as a “surprise” that came despite a supposed truce declared by Trump on Friday, in an attempt to return to a diplomatic path.

But Iran hadn’t agreed to a truce, and last week rejected an attempt at diplomacy by the U.S. via Iraq. Iranian officials said this week that they aren’t engaged in active negotiations with the U.S. for a ceasefire. The framing is also ironic considering that it was Trump who unilaterally declared the ceasefire over this month, restarting strikes; and it was the U.S. and Israel who launched unprovoked strikes in February to start the war.

Trump has made numerous maximalist threats that never came to fruition, often seemingly using them as a tactic to force Iran to the negotiation table. Last Thursday, he told Axios’s Barak Ravid that he was “considering a massive attack” that would be “bigger than ever before.”

Then, on Saturday, The New York Times said that Trump set aside those plans at the advice of top aides amid reported concerns over munitions stocks as well as “prospect of a widening war in the Middle East, the alienation of key Gulf allies who are vulnerable to Iranian attack, a global economic crunch, and growing energy and refugee crises.”

The military has followed through on some of Trump’s threats, however, like his threats to destroy civilian infrastructure like power plants and bridges. An analysis by conflict monitor Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) found last week that the U.S. has conducted 21 strikes on civilian sites in July alone. Targeting civilian infrastructure is generally considered a war crime under international law.

Last week, a group of hundreds of Jordanian political and legal figures signed a letter criticizing their government for hosting the U.S. base.

Meanwhile, as the conflict continues spiraling out of Trump’s control, the U.S. is pulling other countries into the war.

On Wednesday, the U.S. teamed up with Saudi Arabia in launching strikes on Iraqi militias, killing at least 20 and wounding 32, Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces said. The strike came after Saudi Arabia reported intercepting drones that were targeting oil facilities, and attributed the strikes to Iran-backed Iraqi militias, but the Iraqi militias have denied involvement.

In a press release on the strikes, CENTCOM said that Iraqi “terrorists” were “directed to attack U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure” by Iran, though Iranian state media reported that Iran has denied involvement.

The strikes represent another potential escalation in the war that now involves joint Saudi-U.S. strikes on an as yet uninvolved country.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthis are reportedly considering imposing a fee on the Bab el-Mandeb strait at the opening of the Red Sea, after striking Saudi Arabian assets in the inlet in response to Saudi attacks on Yemen’s Sanaa airport earlier this month.