By Andrew Thornebrooke
President Donald Trump is considering using military force to support Israel’s current campaign to destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities.
Though Trump has expressed a desire to keep American forces out of the expanding conflict in the Middle East, Israel lacks the military capabilities required to directly destroy some of Iran’s nuclear facilities due to their location deep underground.
To successfully destroy Iran’s Fordo nuclear enrichment plant, which is housed beneath a mountain, Israel requires so-called “bunker-buster” bombs, which are designed to penetrate soil and concrete structures before striking their target.
The only ordnance likely capable of reaching the facilities at Fordo, however, are American-made precision weapons owned exclusively by the U.S. military.
That means that Israel will require U.S. support to complete its stated goal of destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities in toto without deploying troops on the ground at Fordo.
Iran’s Nuclear Fortress
Fordo is Iran’s second-largest nuclear facility and is located about 60 miles southwest of the capital of Tehran.
The facility hosts advanced uranium centrifuge cascades, which are essential for producing nuclear fuel. Many analysts have also long suspected that Fordo is where the Iranian regime would conceal any clandestine attempts to develop nuclear warheads.
Constructed between 2007 and 2009, the Fordo facility is built into the side of a mountain and is roughly 260 feet underground, as well as reinforced with barriers.
The facility also appears designed to withstand direct airstrikes and is protected by anti-aircraft batteries, though these have come under fire from Israeli forces in the last week.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the goal of attacking Iran was to eliminate its missile and nuclear programs, which he described as an existential threat to Israel, and officials have said the destruction of Fordo was part of that plan.
“This entire operation … really has to be completed with the elimination of Fordo,” Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, said during a Fox News interview on Friday.
American Ordnance Required for an Airstrike
Fordo’s expansive natural and man-made defenses mean that there are steep requirements for what type of ordnance could destroy the facility via airstrike.
The only available ordnance likely to fit that bill is the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a precision munition designed for the U.S. Air Force in the early 2000s.
Each GBU-57A/B weighs 30,000 pounds and is capable of penetrating about 200 feet of soil and concrete before exploding. Multiple bombs can also be used in succession to dig down further one after the other, thereby destroying heavily fortified underground bunkers such as those American forces struggled to eradicate during the Iraq War.
Further complicating the matter of striking Fordo, however, is the fact that there is only one aircraft outfitted to carry and use the GBU-57A/B. That aircraft is the B-2 Spirit, the United States’ premier stealth bomber.
The strategic long-range heavy bomber has a range of about 7,000 miles without refueling, and there are already four such aircraft deployed to the Indian Ocean, though it is unclear if those four are equipped with the GBU-57A/B.
Such a bomb would therefore need to be dropped from an American aircraft, which could risk pulling the United States into another war in the Middle East.
Such an attack would also risk releasing the highly enriched uranium present at the site, raising the possibility of a radiation-related disaster.
Israeli military leadership has suggested that there could be other options for attacking Fordo that did not require such a capability, but have not disclosed what those options are.
U.S. Mulls Entering Israel’s War
Trump has called on Iran to submit to an unconditional surrender to Israel and has said that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would be an “easy target” if the United States chose to take action against Iran.
Trump’s remarks come a day after he called for the immediate evacuation of Tehran, repeating the warning that Iran must not obtain a nuclear weapon and suggesting the country could be headed for a catastrophe by refusing to make a deal on nuclear disarmament.
Though the Trump administration has frequently positioned itself as being against foreign military entanglements, the desire to eliminate the potential for a nuclear-armed Iran and to support Israel appears to have shifted that stance somewhat.
Writing on the social media platform X, Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday that Trump “may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment.”
Acknowledging Americans’ concern about another war in the Middle East, Vance said the decision of whether to bomb Iran would ultimately be made by Trump.
“That decision ultimately belongs to the president,” Vance wrote.
“But I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
