Midday tomorrow - our time. That is the deadline Donald Trump has given Iran.

Now, if your reaction is something along the lines of not really caring because Donald Trump has set plenty of deadlines before and then walked away from them, that’s fair enough. All of that is true.

But this one does feel ever so slightly different.

This time he has set a very specific deadline - an exact hour on an exact day. He doubled down on it this morning in a lengthy news conference. It isn’t weeks away. And the threat itself is very specific: he says he will target bridges and power plants.

It also appears the administration has, to some degree, thought through how such an attack would unfold. Trump has even claimed it would take a precise amount of time - four hours.

Now, even if he sounds more serious and more prepared, that doesn’t mean he’ll actually go through with it.

The obvious off-ramp is the same one he’s used before: announcing that Iran has come to the table, that progress has been made in peace talks - progress no one else can verify - but insisting we simply trust that it’s happening behind closed doors.

What’s clear, though, is that Trump is deeply frustrated.

At the weekend, that frustration has centred on the Strait of Hormuz. And this should be dawning on everyone: Donald Trump can’t force it open. That reality seems to be hitting him now, hence the expletive-laden messages on social media in the past few days.

He has two options.

One is to escalate - to hit Iran so hard that it concedes and opens the strait. That’s a long shot.

The other is to declare victory, claim he’s achieved everything he set out to do and walk away - leaving Iran effectively in control of the strait.

Iran would then be able to levy a charge of around US$2 million a ship, split with Oman, which sits across the water. We know this because Iran has now put forward a 10-point peace plan that explicitly lays out this intention.

Those appear to be the only two paths left.

Trump has made a very big deal out of choosing the first - out of threatening massive escalation. So at midday tomorrow, it’s either all on…or it’s the most spectacular walk-back yet.

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