Donald Trump threatened to kill some people on Thursday, both implicitly and explicitly.

First, he shared a social media message from Marc Thiessen who, in an opinion column for the Post published mid-week, offered a modest suggestion for how to deal with an Iranian leadership struggling to coalesce around a negotiating position.

“If the Iranian regime is really ‘fractured’ between a faction that wants a deal and a faction that does not, there is a simple solution: Kill the faction that does not,” Thiessen wrote. The emphasis is in the original.

Later, Trump said “there will be no hesitation” when it comes to blowing up any IRGC vessel — and thereby the people steering those vessels — which attempts to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

As an editorial rule, I don’t advocate for assassinations. So I’ll just say the following of Thiessen’s suggestion: I’ve heard worse ideas.

To the extent Guards chief Ahmad Vahidi is indeed the “problem” — and it’s becoming clearer by the day that he is — it’s not obvious what anyone, including the Iranians, gains from allowing him to exercise veto power over proposals to end the war.

As discussed in these pages at some length this week and last, Vahidi’s an especially abhorrent figure. He’s not just another OFAC-sanctioned regime lifer. He’s wanted by Interpol for killing seven-dozen people in the infamous 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina.

Also, Vahidi played a very early role in Iran’s extraterritorial military activities, serving in several foreign intelligence capacities beginning on or around 1981, which means he very likely helped Fuad Shukr and Ibrahim Aqil plan the 1983 barracks attack that killed 220 Marines in Beirut. (Both Shukr and Aqil were assassinated by the IDF in 2024.)

In short, Vahidi’s a terrorist. And not just in the sense that the US government describes any member of the IRGC as a “terrorist,” but also in the conventional, “everyday” sense of the term.

I assume Ali Abdollahi and Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr (two of the other three people who matter) are more inclined to Vahidi’s absolutist position than they are to Bagher Ghalibaf’s relatively (note the emphasis) moderate stance, but I also think that were it not for Vahidi’s apparent recalcitrance, a negotiated settlement would be easier to sell Abdollahi and Zolghadr.

If all of that’s even a semblance of accurate, then… well, I’ll just put it this way: Israel killed Vahidi’s predecessor on the first night of the 12-Day War along with a whole bunch of his friends.

After amplifying Thiessen’s kill the holdouts message, Trump did a little editorializing of his own. “Iran is having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is! They just don’t know!” he exclaimed. “The infighting is between the ‘Hardliners,’ who have been losing BADLY on the battlefield, and the ‘Moderates,’ who are not very moderate at all.” The situation, Trump assessed, “is CRAZY!” (Say what you will, but if anyone knows “CRAZY!” it’s Trump.)

He gave no indication he’s prepared to lift the blockade that the Guards cite as an excuse for reciprocal ship-seizing. The Strait’s “Sealed up Tight,” Trump said.

Earlier in the day, he bragged about ordering the US Navy to “shoot and kill any boat” trying to mine the waterway. He also gloated that Iran has no actual ships left. Only boats. The ships, “ALL 159 of them,” are “at the bottom of the sea.”

Apparently, I’m the only one who can find any humor in this anymore, but I’m ok with that. Because there’s absolutely an element of farce to the whole thing by now.

Ghalibaf weighed in Thursday as well. “In Iran, there are no radicals or moderates,” he insisted, in a half-hearted attempt to dispense with the idea he’s struggling to bring Vahidi around.

Then he went out of his way to emphasize that the Revolution and Mojtaba are both alive. “We are all ‘revolutionary’… with complete obedience to the Supreme Leader,” Ghalibaf went on, calling Trump an “aggressor criminal” who’ll “regret his actions.”

Ghalibaf no more wrote that on his own than he did Sunday’s oil futures “vibe-trading” tweet. Although Ghalibaf’s more than capable when it comes to penning overwrought bombast (i.e., this type of rhetoric isn’t “out of character,” per se), he’s beginning to sound suspiciously like a man who’s got a gun to his head. And I don’t mean the one Trump’s holding.

If that’s true, it’s unfortunate. Ghalibaf’s no pushover. He could just as easily be Guards chief as Vahidi had he not chosen to enter “elected” politics in Iran. Ali Larijani, you’re reminded, was also parliament speaker. But it seems like Ghalibaf may lack the will to chance a confrontation with Vahidi.

Unless everyone’s just totally mistaken about the internal dynamics in Tehran, this is headed in the wrong direction all of a sudden. Not that the direction it was headed two weeks ago was in any sense “good” or “right.” But Vahidi probably won’t negotiate with anyone over anything. And a military coup led by a Khamenei absolutist, as Vahidi’s variously known, isn’t a coup. It’s just the regime without a turban.

Meanwhile, Fatih Birol showed up on CNBC to describe the stakes in the Strait. “We are facing the biggest energy security threat in history,” the IEA chief said.

Late Thursday, an unsourced Channel 12 report said Ghalibaf resigned from his role leading negotiations with the US, citing “growing interference” from IRGC generals. Someone remind Ghalibaf that he is an IRGC general.