WASHINGTON-President Donald Trump is facing a critical decision in the newly linked war between Israel and Iran: whether or not to enter the conflict by helping Israel to destroy the installation of profoundly buried nuclear enrichment in Ford, which can only be hit by the largest “Bunker Buster” (free translation) of the United States, launched by bombers B-2 Americans.
If you decide to move forward, the United States will become direct participants in a new conflict in the Middle East, facing Iran just in the type of war that Trump promised, in two campaigns, avoid. Iranian officials have already warned that American participation in an attack on its facilities would endanger any – a deal Trump still insists on having an interest in negotiating.
At one point, Trump even encouraged his envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, to offer a meeting with the Iranians, according to an US government official. But on Monday (16), Trump published on social networks that “everyone should evacuate Tehran immediately,” which is far from being a sign of diplomatic advancement.
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Trump also said on Monday, “I think Iran is basically at the negotiating table, they want to make a deal.”
The sense of urgency has increased. The White House announced at the end of Monday that Trump would leave the G7 summit earlier due to the situation in the Middle East.
“As soon as I get out of here, we’ll do something,” said Trump. “But I need to get out of here.”
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What he intended to do, however, was not yet clear.
If Vance and Witkoff actually met with the Iranians, authorities say that the likely interlocutor would be Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, who played a central role in the 2015 nuclear agreement with the Obama government and knows every detail of the Iranian nuclear complex. Araghi, who has been Witkoff’s counterpart in recent negotiations, signaled openness to an agreement on Monday, saying in a statement: “If President Trump really wants diplomacy and is interested in stopping this war, the next steps will be decisive.”
“Just a call from Washington to silence someone like Netanyahu,” he said, referring to Prime Minister Israeli. “This can pave the way for the return of diplomacy.”
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But if this diplomatic effort fails, or if the Iranians remain reluctant to accept Trump’s main requirement – which is the total end of uranium enrichment on Iranian soil – the president will still have the option to order the destruction of Ford and other nuclear facilities.
According to experts, there is only one weapon capable of fulfilling this mission: the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or GBU-57, which weighs so much-13.6 tons-which can only be transported by a B-2 bomber. Israel has neither the pump, nor the plane needed to launch it over the target.
If Trump retreats, it may mean that Israel’s main goal in war will never be achieved.
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“Fordo has always been the central point of this issue,” says Brett McGurk, who worked on Middle East themes for four American presidents from George W. Bush to Joe Biden. “If this is over with lord yet enriching, it will not be a strategic gain.”
This has been true for a long time, and in the last two years the US military has refined the operation under direct supervision of the White House. The exercises led to the conclusion that a bomb would not only solve the problem; Any attack on Ford would have to be done in waves, with B-2s throwing one bomb after another at the same point. And the operation would have to be performed by American pilots and crew.
All of this was part of war planning until the first attacks on Friday morning in Tehran, Iran’s capital, claiming that Israel had discovered a “imminent” threat that required “preventive action.” According to him, new intelligence information – without detailing – indicated that Iran was about to turn its nuclear fuel stock into arms.
US intelligence officials, who have been with the Iranian program for years, agree that Iranian scientists and experts have been working to reduce the time needed to make a nuclear bomb but have not seen significant advances.
Still, they agree with McGurk and other experts in one point: If the installation of lined to survive the conflict, Iran will maintain the key equipment to continue on the pump path, even if it needs to rebuild much of the nuclear infrastructure destroyed by Israel in four days of precision bombing.
There may be alternatives to bombing, although not guaranteed. If the lined energy is cut by sabotage or bombing, this can damage or destroy the centrifuges that rotate at supersonic speeds. Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Monday that this may have occurred in the other large uranium enrichment center in the country, Natanz. Israel cut the plant’s energy supply on Friday (13) and Grossi said the interruption probably made the centrifuges go out of control.
Trump rarely speaks of Forda by name, but occasionally refers to GBU-57, sometimes telling advisors that he ordered his development. This is not true: the US began to project the weapon in 2004 during the Bush administration, specifically to collapse mountains that protect some of the deepest nuclear facilities in Iran and North Korea. She, however, was tested during Trump’s first term and incorporated into Arsenal.
Netanyahu presses the US to make their Bunker Busters available since the Bush administration, so far to no avail. But people close to Trump say the theme has been recurring in conversations with the Israeli Prime Minister. When asked about it, Trump often avoids direct answers.
Now the pressure has increased. Former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who resigned after Netanyahu divergences, told CNN on Monday that “the work needs to be done by Israel by the United States,” in reference to the fact that the bomb would have to be launched by an American pilot on a US plane. He said Trump “has the option to change the Middle East and influence the world.”
Senator Lindsey Graham, a republican of South Carolina and the traditional voice of the party’s most row sector, told CBS on Sunday that “if diplomacy is not successful,” he will “press President Trump to go to the end and ensure that at the end of the operation, nothing stands in Iran-related to the nuclear program.”
“If this means providing pumps, which provides pumps,” he said, clearly referring to the Massive Ordnance Penetrator. “If it means flying along with Israel, flying along with Israel.”
But Republicans are far from consensus. And the internal division of the use of one of the most powerful conventional weapons in the Pentagon to help one of the closest allies in the US exposes an even deeper split. It is not just a matter of destroying the centrifuges of Ford; It is also the sight of the Maga movement on what types of war the United States should avoid at all costs.
The party’s anti-interventionist group, whose most prominent voice is the influential Tucker Carlson podcaster, argues that the lesson in Iraq and Afghanistan is that there are only risks in engaging deeply in another war in the Middle East. On Friday, Carlson wrote that the US should “abandon Israel” and “let them fight their own wars.”
“If Israel wants to stop this war, you have every right to do so,” he continued. “It’s a sovereign country and can act as you want. But not with the support of the United States.”
In the Pentagon, the division is for other reasons. ELBRIDGE A. Colby, Undersecretary of Defense for Policies – the agency’s third most important position – has long argued that each military appeal for wars in the Middle East is a less appeal for the Pacific and the containment of China. (Colby had to adjust his position on Iran to be confirmed in office.)
For now, Trump can afford to keep a foot in each field. In trying another round of coercive diplomacy, it can argue for the magician base that is using the threat of the Ordnance Penetrator mass to seek a peaceful solution. And you can tell the Iranians that they will stop enriching uranium in one way or another-either by diplomatic agreement, or because a GBU-57 imploded the mountain.
But if the combination of persuasion and pressure fails, he will have to decide whether this is a war from Israel or the United States.
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