As US President Donald Trump considers whether to join Israel in attacks on Iran, including using bunker buster bombs to hit nuclear facilities from underground, senior officials are discussing how the US can strike those targets without engaging in full-scale war, people familiar with the matter said.
Two European diplomats said over the weekend that some U.S. allies received word that the Trump administration planned to wait and see what the Israelis had accomplished in the first week of operations against Iran's nuclear program before making a decision on involving U.S. military assets.
Trump said a day before that deadline that he had not made a firm decision on how to proceed, and in talks with U.S. allies on Wednesday, administration officials were not firmly in one direction or the other, diplomats said.
As the president weighs his options, a source familiar with the matter said he believes a U.S. strike does not necessarily mean full-scale U.S. involvement in a foreign war. And people close to Trump argued that decisive strikes are different from broader actions that could prolong the conflict.
“America could drop a couple MOABs on Fordow, destroy the last nuclear asset and then go,” David Friedman, Trump’s ambassador to Israel during his first term, wrote on social media. MOAB is a reference to the Large Ordnance Air Burst bomb, nicknamed “the mother of all bombs.”
While Trump is keeping his options open, the administration continues to hear from allies who oppose aggressive U.S. intervention. The range of reasons includes Iran’s efforts to close the Strait of Hormuz, potentially disrupting global oil flows, and Iran’s choice to race toward developing nuclear weapons after any U.S. strike, according to two of the sources. Iran has vowed to retaliate if U.S. forces join forces in attacking Israel.
