Planning documents held by the Pentagon outline potential strike options — among them deployment of the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb — targeting Iranian energy facilities and nuclear installations in the event that Trump authorises a return to active hostilities. That information surfaced on October 14 through a broadcast outlet drawing on accounts from several government officials with direct knowledge of the planning process. That outlet, while choosing to carry the story, made clear its own verification of the account remained incomplete.

On October 15, a separate broadcast outlet reported that contingency planning documents drawn up jointly by the White House and the Pentagon outlined conditions under which the weapon could be deployed at the president's direction. The records point to contingency planning rather than a formally approved directive to deploy the weapon.

Zachary Cohen, a national security reporter, noted that Trump and his advisers had devoted months to weighing options capable of being presented to the public as a conclusive end to the conflict. Planners within the armed forces were directed to draw up new attack scenarios, Cohen indicated, given that negotiations had stalled and public backing for the war had eroded. The administration's own declared objectives, the report noted, had yet to be met.

Citrinowicz, who previously held a post inside Israeli military intelligence, put forward the view that no conventional munition — regardless of its size — would be sufficient to force Iran into submission, while allowing that a strike of that nature might generate psychological effects and hand a political figure grounds to proclaim victory, even if that proclaimed outcome bore little relationship to what had actually occurred on the ground.

On October 15, Elijah Magnier, writing in an explainer for a news outlet, assessed that deploying the MOAB against Iran's deeply buried nuclear facilities would fall short of guaranteed destruction and might serve little purpose beyond a public display of force.

Sina Azodi, who directs the Middle East Studies Program at George Washington University, raised doubts about the strategic rationale underlying the option as reported, contending that the administration appeared drawn to deploying military force in ways that generate visible, large-scale spectacle suitable for promotion on personal social media platforms.

On a broadcast dated October 15, retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton, serving as a television network military analyst, drew a distinction between the MOAB's wide-area surface detonation characteristics and the separate targeting problem posed by Iran's fortified, deeply buried nuclear installations. Drawing a distinction between the two weapons, he noted that the Massive Ordnance Penetrator was built with a different battlefield purpose in mind — namely, punching through fortified subterranean structures — whereas the MOAB was not. Leighton went further, casting doubt on whether the aircraft needed to drop the MOAB would be well-suited to operations over Iranian territory.

Drawbacks Leighton raised centred on the munition's tendency to explode above ground and its restricted ability to reach targets buried at depth.