Trump's MOAB threat could put Iran's deepest bunkers in America's crosshairs
Analysts say President Donald Trump's threat about the MOAB should be taken seriously. The US Air Force's GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast weapon, nicknamed the 'mother of all bombs', could figure prominently in any new airstrike plans targeting Iran.
Trump said: 'The mother of all bombs is not nuclear. This is just an extremely large bomb. It's like a tiny nuclear bomb, but the mother of all bombs is one big bomb, but it's not nuclear.' He added: 'I wouldn't use nuclear. We don't have to.'
The analysis notes that the US has a range of precision weapons able to knock out any suspicious target in Iran, including construction activity at Pickaxe Mountain. Admiral Bradley Cooper, commander of US Central Command, has detailed knowledge of high-value Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps sites that could be MOAB targets.
Trump has said he will not strike Iran before the midterm elections, but he is clearly studying Central Command's strike briefing charts in detail — and he wants Iran to know it.
The MOAB was first used on Trump's orders, in Afghanistan in April 2017. On April 13, 2017 it was dropped on a cave complex in Nangarhar Province. Then defence secretary James Mattis said there was no surprise; the battle was under way and what was necessary would be used to break ISIS. CNN reported 94 ISIS fighters killed.
The bomb weighs 21,000 pounds. America's B-2, B-52 and B-1 bombers can carry the weight, but the weapon's shape does not fit standard racks and rotary launchers in bomber weapons bays. For the 2017 mission it was loaded on a special cradle and slid out of the back ramp of an MC-130 in flight.
The MC-130 is a special operations aircraft. Air dominance over Iran would make such a mission easier. The analysis says the initial weeks of Operation Epic Fury knocked out Iran's Russian-built integrated air defences, and subsequent CENTCOM strikes have prevented Iran from reconstituting them. A MOAB mission might also get electronic warfare and attack suppression help from the Space Force, the Air Force and Navy carrier-based aircraft.
The official designation GBU-43 stands for Guided Bomb Unit. Small drogue parachutes stabilise the MOAB on release, and a satellite-guidance kit guides it to the designated impact point. The MOAB is an air burst; its design follows earlier, smaller heavy air blast weapons used in World War II and Vietnam, maximising blast effect without it being muffled by the ground.
The weapon was built in great haste by the Air Force Research Lab just before Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, when reports suggested Iraq might have built large underground bunkers for Saddam Hussein's loyal troops. The 'mother of all' name also echoes Saddam's famous 1991 taunt about 'the mother of all battles'.
Analysts argue Trump's decision to raise the MOAB is about keeping military pressure on the IRGC while the US naval blockade squeezes their oil revenue. The MOAB would be an intimidation weapon for knocking out military targets, and IRGC commanders would face major losses.
It is also a reminder that the US can carry out any military strike it deems necessary, to prevent Iran's path to a nuclear weapon and stop its terrorism. But a threat is not the same as an actual strike; Trump's own statement that he will not attack before the midterms is part of that calculation.
For now, then, the MOAB is being used as an instrument of pressure — large in rhetoric, with any decision to use it in reality depending on Iran's next steps and Washington's political arithmetic.
