New Delhi, July 15 -- the deliberate targeting of infrastructure that tens of millions of civilians depend on to survive a Middle Eastern summer.

"Next week comes the power plants. Next week comes the bridges. We're going to knock out all their power plants," Trump said in the interview. He said US forces would continue striking coastal targets "tonight and tomorrow night" before the escalation began, framing the sequence as deliberate, staged, and conditional on Tehran's next move. The strikes would stop, he said, only if Iran sent representatives back to the negotiating table.

Trump said US officials had spoken with Iranian counterparts approximately one hour before the interview aired, which he offered as evidence that Tehran underst...