Trump abruptly leaves G-7 amid speculation US will bust Iranian bomb-making facility with bunker-buster
TOI correspondent from Washington:
US President Donald Trump abruptly left the G-7 summit in Calgary on Monday evening to attend to security related issues in the middle east, scuppering a planned bilateral engagement with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who arrived for the meeting even as Trump's departure was announced.
Trump was at the summit for less than 24 hours before his sudden departure, with White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt asserting that "much was accomplished, but because of what's going on in the Middle East, President Trump will be leaving tonight after dinner with Heads of State."
Israel-Iran conflict: Follow live updates
Moments earlier, Trump alarmed the world by urging "Everyone should immediately evacuate Teheran" at the tail end of a post that read: 'Iran should have signed the 'deal' I told them to sign. 'What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again!"
Trump is expected to go straight into a National Security Council meeting in the WH Situation room when he arrives in Washington DC, amid speculation that the US will join the Israeli attack to end Iran's nuclear program with one decisive move: Dropping a bunker-busted carried by American B-2 bombers -- the only weapon short of a nuclear bomb that can destroy the deeply buried nuclear enrichment facility at Fordo.
Also read:
Trump slams Iran for ignoring nuclear deal; US skips G7' de-escalation call
Formally called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or the GBU-57, the 20 feet long bunker-buster weights 13600 kgs and can be lifted only by a B-2 bomber, neither of which Israel has even though it is a close US ally. Some experts reckon the US would have to use several GBU-57s to accomplish the mission of entombing Fordo, which war hawks see as the only way to decisively end Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Anything short of that will allow Iran to continue its pursuit of the atomic bomb.
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Trump decision to support Israel's attack on Iran and back it up heavy-duty munitions where his mouth is has alarmed several MAGA acolytes who are screaming that he is betraying his America First promise and embroiling the country in a war that is not of vital interest to the US.
Among the first to break ranks is influential commentator Tucker Carlson, who went on a podcast with Steve Bannon (another isolationist), to argue that the US, already financially strapped, would only be weakened by getting involved in another war.
A stung Trump, shot back with a post saying "Someone please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that Iran can not have a nuclear weapon!"
Carlson and some other MAGA principals have contended that the threat of Iran acquiring nukes is exaggerated and that there is not credible evidence that it is close to making a bomb. Among the few lawmakers who have dared to come out against Trump gradually putting US into the war is Marjorie Taylor Greene, who said "Anyone slobbering for the U.S. to become fully involved in the Israel/Iran war is not America First/MAGA.
"
"Wishing for murder of innocent people is disgusting. We are sick and tired of foreign wars. All of them. And this one will quickly engulf the Middle East, BRICS, and NATO as countries are required to take a side," she warned.
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