US President Donald Trump has ruled out using nuclear weapons against Iran, saying Washington does not need them and stressing that the “mother of all bombs” his military is reportedly considering is a conventional weapon.
“The mother of all bombs is not nuclear,” Trump said in an interview with Newsmax on Thursday. “This is just an extremely large bomb,” The Express Tribune reported.
He was asked about reports that his administration was considering using the bomb against Iran, possibly after the November 3 US midterm elections.
“We may have to go there”
Trump raised the possibility of further strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, including a suspected underground site known as Pickaxe Mountain. “Now, we’re looking at Pickaxe Mountain. We may have to go there,” he said.
Asked whether that would involve American ground troops, he replied: “No, I don’t see that. I don’t see that.” He said leaving before ensuring Iran could never get a nuclear weapon might require more US military action within a year. “We want to make it so that they will never have a nuclear weapon,” he said.
“Over very soon”
Trump again predicted the war would end soon and claimed Iran was negotiating with Washington. “The Iran war will be over very soon. It’s going to end very soon,” he said. “One way or the other, it’ll end very soon. And oil will go dropping like a rock, and gas prices as well.”
He claimed Iranian officials had asked for a halt to US and Israeli military operations. “They’ve asked us to please stop. And we do, because we’re negotiating with them,” he said.
Asked whether he trusted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said: “I don’t trust anybody, honestly. In the world of politics, I don’t trust anybody.”
The ‘mother of all bombs’
CNN reported that US military planners had drawn up strike options that could use the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb against Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear-related sites, Geo News reported. No final decision has been made.
- Power: the bomb delivers an explosive yield equivalent to 11 tonnes of TNT, with a blast radius of roughly 1,000 yards to a mile
- Limits: it is designed for large-area targets, not as a deep-penetration bomb able to reliably destroy heavily fortified underground nuclear sites
- Past use: the US used it in Afghanistan in April 2017 against an Islamic State tunnel complex
Iran refuses to surrender
Tehran has continued to reject demands to surrender. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the UN General Assembly in September that Iran would not submit to US pressure, while saying diplomacy remained an option to end the war, which began with US and Israeli strikes on February 28.
Why it matters
Ruling out nuclear weapons is welcome, but Trump’s talk of hitting Pickaxe Mountain shows the war could still escalate after the midterms. Pakistan, which has helped keep channels open between Washington and Tehran, has every reason to push for the deal Trump says is coming. Read our report on the ships sunk near Hormuz.
This article draws on reporting by The Express Tribune, Geo News and CNN.
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