Trump must decide whether to join the kind of war he's always sworn he'd avoid
Washington: US President Donald Trump is weighing a critical decision in the five-day-old war between Israel and Iran: whether to enter the fray by helping Israel destroy Iran's deeply buried nuclear enrichment facility at Fordow, which only US 'bunker busters' dropped by US B-2 bombers, can reach.
If he decides to go ahead, the United States will become a direct participant in a new conflict in the Middle East, taking on Iran in exactly the kind of war Trump has sworn, in two campaigns, he would avoid. Iranian officials have warned that American participation in an attack on its facilities will imperil any remaining chance of the nuclear disarmament deal that Trump insists he is still interested in pursuing.
Trump has encouraged Vice President J.D. Vance and his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to offer to meet the Iranians this week, according to a US official. The offer may be well received.
Trump, at the Group of Seven summit in Canada, on Tuesday (AEST), said: 'I think Iran basically is at the negotiating table, they want to make a deal.'
If such a meeting happened, officials say, the likely Iranian interlocutor would be the country's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, who played a key role in the 2015 nuclear deal with the Obama administration and knows every element of Iran's sprawling nuclear complex. Araghchi, who has been Witkoff's counterpart in recent negotiations, signalled his openness to a deal, saying in a statement, 'If President Trump is genuine about diplomacy and interested in stopping this war, next steps are consequential.'
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'It takes one phone call from Washington to muzzle someone like Netanyahu,' he said, referring to the Israeli prime minister. 'That may pave the way for a return to diplomacy.'
But if that diplomatic effort fizzles, or the Iranians remain unwilling to give in to Trump's central demand that they must ultimately end all uranium enrichment on Iranian soil, the president will still have the option of ordering that Fordow and other nuclear facilities be destroyed.
There is only one weapon for the job, experts contend. It is called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or the GBU-57, and it weighs so much – 30,000 pounds (13 tonnes) – that it can be lifted only by a B-2 bomber. Israel does not own either the weapon or the bomber needed to get it aloft and over a target.
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