Pentagon planners have drawn up scenarios in which the United States armed forces' heaviest non-nuclear munition would be directed at both power and energy infrastructure and nuclear-related sites inside Iran, contingent on a presidential authorisation from Donald Trump to resume hostilities, according to unnamed officials who spoke with a broadcast outlet.
Some analysts have raised the possibility that deploying the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb — a weapon commonly referred to as the "mother of all bombs" — at a point when battlefield activity has quietened, could draw the conflict into a wider confrontation. Questions about what the move would accomplish have surfaced from multiple directions, including from within the administration itself.
People with knowledge of internal military planning conversations have assessed that deploying the MOAB would fall short of advancing the stated US objective of neutralising Iran's nuclear programme. Brussels-based military analyst Magnier, speaking in a broadcast interview, put forward the position that the MOAB's blast radius falls below the threshold required to put Iran's deeply embedded nuclear sites out of action, and that any strike of that kind would register more as a political gesture than a concrete shift in the military picture.
Designated the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, the aerial weapon carries a high-explosive payload of roughly 8,500 kilograms — equivalent to around 18,000 pounds, or 8.5 tonnes. The munition weighs approximately 9,800 kilograms and runs to just over nine metres from end to end. Delivery of the MOAB relies on the Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft, given that the weapon's dimensions exceed what stealth bomber bays are designed to accommodate.
The device, whose production dates back to the 2002–2003 period, has been put through 12 separate detonation trials. The name draws on remarks made by Saddam Hussein, who led Iraq at the time, during the 1991 Gulf War — specifically his invocation of "the mother of all battles."
Prior to the current deployment discussions, the MOAB had been used in combat only once — when it was dropped on a network of caves and tunnels held by the Islamic State's Khorasan Province affiliate in Afghanistan in 2017. Figures attributed to the authorities who conducted the operation put the toll at 94 militant deaths from Islamic State-Khorasan Province and no civilian harm from the blast; no outside party has independently verified those figures. Accounts of civilian deaths circulated without verification, while a number of residential properties were reported to have been left in ruins.
Configured to detonate at low altitude, the weapon disperses pressure waves across a wide surface area upon activation, with its blast radius engineered to clear structures such as buildings and cave entrances, Magnier noted. Abu Zeid, a colonel with a background in military analysis, described the munition as designed to detonate without requiring any point of contact, with its resulting blast capable of levelling everything at ground level across a one-kilometre, or 0.6-mile, span.
Abu Zeid outlined a plan in which high-explosive MOAB munitions would be directed at Iranian ground-force positions on the surface while also targeting subterranean installations — among them Pickaxe Mountain, a site Trump had previously named as a potential strike location. The extent of damage and the reach of the blast, Magnier noted, would vary considerably depending on the landscape where the weapon is deployed and the density of any nearby population. Targets buried at considerable depth, he noted, would likely fall outside the range where the weapon performs reliably.
Certain facilities within Iran's nuclear programme — among them the Fordow complex and a site under development at Pickaxe Mountain — are protected by extensive fortifications and positioned at considerable depth below ground. Magnier noted that the weapon's substantial explosive payload is capable of producing pronounced blast effects against personnel, equipment, and structures that lack hardened protection. He went on to note that while the Afghanistan deployment demonstrated the weapon's utility against cave and tunnel networks, that single instance does not establish a capacity to neutralise every variety of subterranean structure, and that unlike a purpose-built penetrating munition, the MOAB relies on blast force rather than on physically driving through reinforced concrete or solid rock.
The GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator — known within military arsenals as the largest bunker-penetrating weapon in the inventory of United States armed forces — is constructed from hardened steel and weighs roughly 30,000 pounds, or 13,600 kilograms, with the warhead alone accounting for 6,000 pounds, or 2,700 kilograms, of that total. The munition is engineered to bore through as much as 200 feet, or 61 metres, of earth before its detonation sequence triggers. Magnier noted in remarks to a television outlet that positioning the aircraft required for such strikes near facilities of that kind presents its own set of logistical obstacles, quite apart from questions about whether underground targets would be reliably hit. Aircraft designed for low-observable flight through that type of terrain lack the payload capacity to deploy munitions of that scale.
Magnier noted that deploying the weapon carries the risk of destroying infrastructure while extracting no meaningful concessions from Iran. He framed the central question for any officer supporting its use as a two-part assessment: whether the munition can achieve something no other available option can, and whether that outcome would move the parties toward a workable political resolution — adding that if the answer rests primarily on the visual impact of the detonation, the case for using it belongs more to the realm of public spectacle than to sound military reasoning.
Private conversations attributed to Trump, as relayed by an unnamed broadcast outlet, reportedly involve his push for a war conclusion that would allow the United States to leave the conflict without having suffered a defeat. Analysts have noted that deploying a MOAB could draw a response from Iran, with the country potentially taking action against nearby states that host American forces.
Over a period of several months, statements from Iranian security personnel have referenced the prospect of military incursions into neighbouring states such as Kuwait as a means of detaining American forces and compelling the United States to stand down. During a lull in the fighting that month, Kuwait put forward claims that personnel from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had crossed onto Bubiyan Island, touching off a shooting confrontation between the two countries' forces. A Kuwaiti national sustained injuries while four soldiers from the Iranian side were taken into custody. A navigation failure affecting the troops was put forward as the explanation, with the characterisation of the incident as an invasion of the island set aside as inaccurate.
Naghdi, described as a security adviser linked to the Revolutionary Guard, put forward the assertion that a ground incursion by the United States would end with large numbers of its troops taken prisoner, leaving Washington no path forward except withdrawal — a position that outside observers have largely treated with scepticism, pointing to the physical realities of Iranian terrain as a practical barrier to any such operation.
Analysts have noted that weapons stockpiles have been growing, positions tied to nuclear and defence activity have been reinforced, and support networks among allied factions have been consolidated, with outside observers characterising the overall pattern as groundwork for a possible fresh outbreak of conflict. Speaking in a televised address, Mohsen Rezaei — head of the National Security Council — stated that a resumption of American strikes would prompt retaliatory action against digital infrastructure across the region, including data centres, communication cables, and artificial intelligence facilities located in the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere.
