We get the latest analysis on the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran from Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Parsi discusses the increasing “desperation” of U.S. strategy, Iran’s long-term economic control over the Strait of Hormuz and growing “hawkishness,” and the dangerous possibility of nuclear warfare.This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.As the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran enters its sixth week, President Trump has threatened to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges unless the Strait of Hormuz is reopened by Tuesday. Trump’s attacks on civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.In a profanity-laced Truth Social post on Easter Sunday, Trump wrote, quote, “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” — three exclamation points. “Open the F—in’ Strait, you crazy b-------, or you’ll be living in Hell–JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” the president wrote — he used the actual word.Iranian officials warned with retaliating, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Naval Command saying in a post on X, the Strait of Hormuz, quote, “will never return to its former state, especially for America and Israel,” unquote.Earlier this morning, Iranian media reported explosions after an Israeli attack on the South Pars petrochemical complex in the city of Asaluyeh. The South pars is one of the world’s largest natural gas reserves, shared between Iran and Qatar on the Persian Gulf. South Pars accounts for about 70 to 80% of Iran’s gas supply. A separate U.S.-Israeli strike also targeted South Pars facilities in Iran last month.Meanwhile, Iranian state media reported today that Majid Khademi, intelligence chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was killed in a joint U.S.-Israeli strike.For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, author of several books, including Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy.We’re certainly not seeing any triumph of diplomacy right now, Trita Parsi. If you can talk about President Trump’s expletive-laced Easter Day message to Iran?TRITA PARSI: What we’re seeing here is a repeat of previous threats and deadlines, but now, of course, with far greater tone of desperation from Trump. He has issued threats of this kind several times before. He hasn’t fully acted on them, backed down, recognizing that he doesn’t have escalation dominance. He cannot escalate his way out of this conflict, because if he goes after the power plants on a large scale, the Iranians will do the same to the infrastructure in the GCC and Israel, and the situation will become much worse, particularly in terms of oil prices shooting up.Nevertheless, he is increasingly desperate, because he’s realizing he cannot just end the war by walking away. He has to have some sort of a negotiated settlement. But the negotiated settlement will be very different from the one that he first had in mind, because the realities on the ground are such that he is not in a dominant position. He cannot dictate terms. And as a result, now he’s trying to issue these ultimatums in the hope that the Iranians will surrender.But there’s no sign whatsoever that the Iranians are in the mood of a surrender or even accepting his deadline. The Iranians are not going to accept a ceasefire that puts them in the same position as Lebanon and Gaza have been put in when they have agreed to ceasefire by the United States and Israel, which have turned out to be just temporary pauses in order for the United States or Israel to be able to regroup, rearm and then relaunch attacks. And this is clearly frustrating Trump, because he’s realizing he’s not in that position of dominance that he thought he would be.AMY GOODMAN: If you could talk about the significance of South Pars right now, owned — the north part run by Qatar, the south, Iran, and, of course, it is a major source of energy for Iran, like 70 to 80% of its energy, threatening to blow that up, as well as bridges?TRITA PARSI: So, South Pars is a very important field for the Iranians. It’s shared, a gas field. It’s shared with Qatar, although Qataris are extracting much more gas out of it, because the Iranians don’t have the technology, given all of the sanctions that have been imposed on Iran for a significant amount of time. Asaluyeh is another place nearby that is now being attacked currently by the Israelis, that is critical for Iran’s domestic energy consumption. And we have seen that when those fields or facilities have been struck in the past, the Iranians have retaliated.