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On Sunday, April 5, U.S. President Donald Trump posted a reminder of his thrice-postponed deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face U.S. strikes on its civilian infrastructure, such as power plants and bridges—a threat that he escalated two days later by saying Iran’s “whole civilization will die tonight,” hours before abruptly announcing a two-week cease-fire.

That deadline, as Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday, was “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!”

On Sunday, April 5, U.S. President Donald Trump posted a reminder of his thrice-postponed deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face U.S. strikes on its civilian infrastructure, such as power plants and bridges—a threat that he escalated two days later by saying Iran’s “whole civilization will die tonight,” hours before abruptly announcing a two-week cease-fire.

That deadline, as Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday, was “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!”

One of the more unexpected responses to that post came from the X account of the Iranian Embassy in Zimbabwe. “8 P.M. is not that good. Could you change it to between 1 and 2 P.M., or if possible, 1 and 2 A.M.? Thank you for your attention to this important matter. I.E.Z.,” the embassy wrote, paraphrasing in its last sentence a phrase that Trump frequently uses to sign off his posts.

It was a public diplomatic communication that would likely have been unthinkable even six weeks ago and a remarkably tongue-in-cheek response from a country that had just faced a month of relentless bombing by the United States and Israel.

But various Iranian embassy accounts have spent much of the war trolling Trump and his administration with posts, photos, and videos, some of which are generated by artificial intelligence.

“Back to the Stone Age already? We’ve been a civilization for thousands of years,” the Iranian Embassy in Thailand posted in response to Trump’s threat to blast Iran “back to the Stone Ages.” The post featured an AI-generated photo depicting the U.S. president as a caveman.

“The regime change happened successfully,” the Iranian Embassy in South Africa wrote, mentioning one of Trump’s many given reasons for launching the war against Iran but juxtaposing it with photos with overlays crossing out several military officials recently fired by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

One might be forgiven for thinking that these were parody accounts, as none of them have the gray check mark that X often places on official government accounts. But an Iranian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media confirmed that all three accounts were authentic and........

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