President Trump says he won’t use a nuclear weapon on Iran. He won’t rule out the next biggest thing. Asked about reports that the military has drawn up plans using the “mother of all bombs,” America’s most powerful non-nuclear bomb, Trump told Newsmax: “It’s not nuclear at all, this is just an extremely large bomb.” He declined to say whether he’d authorized it.
“I wouldn’t use nuclear. We don’t have to. We’re the greatest nuclear power in the world,” he said. It’s the first time he has flatly ruled out nuclear weapons in the war, which the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran in late February, Al Jazeera reported.
What is the ‘mother of all bombs’?
The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, or MOAB, weighs about 21,600 pounds and carries roughly 18,000 pounds of explosives. It’s dropped from a cargo plane and explodes just above the ground, flattening structures across an area the size of about nine city blocks. In tests, its mushroom cloud was visible 20 miles away. The U.S. used it in combat once, against an ISIS tunnel complex in Afghanistan in 2017.
Is the U.S. about to bomb Iran again?
Possibly, though maybe not before the midterms. Trump said Oct. 8 he wouldn’t resume strikes before Nov. 3. But Trump has ordered strike packages that include “a lot of energy infrastructure” and possible use of the MOAB, and plans for hitting Iran’s nuclear sites, including the fortified Pickaxe Mountain site, explicitly call for it, sources told CNN. One source said the language suggests a final round of strikes before a U.S. pullout from the region. Some advisers privately weren’t sure his no-strikes-before-the-election pledge was firm.
Military experts doubt the MOAB would even work on Pickaxe. “It is definitely not designed as a deep penetration warhead,” one source told CNN, and the site is believed to be buried under layers of granite. Its huge blast radius also raises the risk of civilian deaths if used near populated areas. Trump told Newsmax he doesn’t see U.S. ground troops going in.
What does a bigger Iran war mean for gas prices?
The war is the main reason gas averages about $4.33 a gallon, up from $2.98 before it started, and why inflation hit 3.7% in September. Trump says the war will end “very soon,” by force or diplomacy, and that oil prices will drop afterward. Oil prices jumped again Friday on Middle East supply worries.
The BeezLoop Take
Ruling out nuclear weapons is the right call, and it shouldn’t have taken this long to say it plainly. But treating “it’s not nuclear” as reassurance misses the point. A bomb that flattens nine city blocks, aimed at energy infrastructure, can kill a lot of civilians, and the people who’d plan the strike doubt it would even reach the target that matters most.
Americans are paying for this war at the pump every week. They deserve a clear answer about what ends it, not a menu of bigger bombs timed around an election.
The open question: what is the actual plan to end the Iran war, and when will the White House tell the public?
Also on BeezLoop: inflation rose to 3.7% as gas jumped 9% in a month, and Trump’s energy ceasefire and diesel deal with Russia.
Sources: Al Jazeera · CNN · KHOU (video)
