U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear sites

These positions are not mutually exclusive though. You can both be in favor of stripping Irans ability to build nukes and oppose Israel’s settlements.

You can oppose something or you can create terorrist militias to attack Israel and destabilize its neighboring countries.

Occupation of "Muslim lands"?

Under the Ottoman Empire it was (relatively) scarcely populated and a fairly even mix of Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Before the Ottomans and various Islamic conquests it was almost entirely Christian/Roman (as was the whole Middle East). Before that Jewish.

And keep in mind Zionism started during the Ottoman era, with Jews simply immigrating there.

Also let's not forget that the partition plan for Palestine was proposed by the UN which you reference.

False.

You’d need to make a distinction between the Iranian regime, a corrupt band of thieves in charge of the government, infused by religion, and the Iranian people, who have been suffering through this for almost half a century. Any criticism is directed against the former, and fully valid: These people are fanatical idiots, albeit dangerous.

That is why they formed the Axis of Resistance. They will act through their proxies. And imagine if Hezbollah or the Houthis got nuclear weapons, the whole world would be threatened.

  > To suggest Iran would do it anyway is equivalent to saying that they're completely, crazy, fanatical, genocidal and stupid

There is nothing racist or dehumanising about acknowledging cultures different from your own. In fact, I would say that assuming everybody adheres to your cultural values is the racist position.

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Was this bombing a genocide?

There's "having nukes" and there's "using nukes".

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QgkUVIj3KWY

The trouble with a regime like Iran is that they are a death cult. The price the put on human life (their own people as much as anyone else) is low, and they're all for martyrdom. With Iran, you cannot assume it's a just a deterrent in a cold war. You have to assume an increased likelihood that they will actually use them.

The main point of having nukes is not using them. The moment one uses them -- they lost.

Nukes are good as a deterrent, not good as a weapon.

Because Iran isn't afraid of the MAD aspect, because of religion. They'd use a nuke in Israel, and Israel is tiny so it'd be devastating.

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> Why are you assuming that Iran wants to destroy Israel?

I'm guessing from the words and actions of Iranian leaders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Israel_in_Irani...

> Why are you assuming that Iran wants to destroy Israel? Everything I’ve actually seen is the complete opposite: it’s Israel that clearly wants to destroy Israel.

Even by your own logic, do you believe that having a country threaten your existence is not reason enough to want them destroyed?

Iran became a theocracy through a popular uprising, too. Democracy and theocracy are quite compatible, as long as the people are religious enough.

I know a similar precedent from Belarus, an Eastern European country. The population is way smaller, and their main problem is Moscow in the east, but it's the same sentiment -- please bomb us as we cannot throw out this regime ourselves, yes.

Internet used to joke about US "freedom bombs", but it's taken quite seriously and positively there.

You hear and read about it, but it’s still surreal to see the effects of propaganda in real life. I’m glad I’m old enough to have seen this show before live.

Even those who want a regime change tend to dislike getting bombs on their heads.

And if anything, the last 20 years taught us that revolutions imposed from the outside never work

how does this do anything except strengthen the resolve of those thugs in power? even those against the regime will want retribution for an attack on their home land.

regime change has never worked, not with actual boots on the ground, let alone targeted air strikes.

How many Iranians do you know that told you that?

Truly amazing to see how fucking stupid the average HN user is.

This is incredibly idiotic. Imagine a terrorist attack against the Trump admin in the following weeks, and someone coming in to say "you'd be surprised, but the people of the USA have been waiting for this moment for months. There are 100 million people who want an end to Trump".

People never, ever, under any circumstances, want to be attacked and bombed by another country. Not even the biggest dissidents rotting in regime jails would welcome this. Not even a little bit.

I agree with the gp.

Iran is a huge country and USA and Israel has been pointing their finger on this exakt spot for weeks.

Either they dug further down or they just transported things away.

Leaving it all there just seems like a really weird thing to do.

> Care to elaborate? A random person doubting things doesn't help other people or bringing a discussion forward.

I don't know if you noticed, but what you are arguing for is in fact for mindlessly accepting unverified claims and extrapolate them to an optimal outcome. This is the opposite of critical thinking, and goes well beyond wishful thinking.

Meanwhile, if you pay attention to OP's point, you'll understand that Iran's nuclear sites have been continuously designed and developed for decades, while subjected to an almost evolutionary pressure, to continue operations even after withstanding direct attacks in scenarios matching exactly Trump's attacks.

In the very least, you must assess the effect of those strikes before making any sort of claim.

Another factor which it seems you somehow missed was the fact that Russia, another nuclear-capable totalitarian regime, is nowadays heavily dependent on Iran to conduct it's imperialist agenda. If Russia was negotiating handing over nuclear capabilities to North Korea in exchange for supporting it's war effort, do you believe Russia now has no interest to speed up Iran's nuclear weapons programmes?

This would be a really risky strategy as it will push the Iranians into a corner with potentially large impacts on the oil price (which will change US public opinion).

The layout of Fordow from what we’ve seen is not a single site. Depending on how many runs they did maybe it is all but destroyed or maybe it’s 1/3 destroyed. I’m sure Israel’s intelligence on it is pretty accurate (probably not public at this point)

aiding regime change would be much easier, and would solve all these problems better. At some point in the next few days, the regime will be so weakened that the Iranian people will overthrow it themselves

None of the points matter when Iran literally states their goal is nuclear weapons and using them on Israel, over and over again. Straight from the horse's mouth.

Yet it's framed as "misconceptions perpetuated by Israel and its 5th column in US media"

My point is to underline the fact that the comment had no purpose other than to shoehorn wild claims of "Israel and its 5th column". Do you dispute this fact?

Sort of. I think there was an effort to put a rules-based framework, still skewed towards the "great powers", but a framework nonetheless.

Invasion of Afghanistan only happened after diplomatic efforts to get the Taliban to surrender Bin Laden. Iraq invasion was pushed through UN. Likewise, the Balkan war in 1990s was UN-sanctioned.

This? I mean, never mind the question of nukes, I don't think anyone declared war. Iran is a buffet of pick-your-own-target, in the middle of a negotiation that was supposed to end the nuclear program peacefully. I'm not saying it because I like Iran (I don't) but because it sets the tone where countries just do what they want, if they can get away with it. It's a step back from a world, where at least in theory we were supposed to stay within the frameworks of principle-based laws.

You might argue that this was always a façade only, and the powerful did whatever they wanted, bending the law around it. Maybe. But I'd like to think it set a limit to how far they can bend it. Now? I'm not so sure.

recent events show that instead, every country should have nukes if they want to be safe.

Russia attacked ukraine because they didn't. Iran got attacked because it didn't. North korea isnt attacked because they have. That's the moral of the story.

It's "make nukes first, ask questions later"

Probably because the country you live in has one or is under unconditional protection of one.

I'm not saying I have beef with it. I would be happier with a world where fewer countries, including Iran and Israel, have nukes. I'm saying legality of nukes seems 100% derived from a calculus of power, not first principles - that includes US, UK, Russia, China, everyone.

If a mafia boss defines anything he gets away with as legal, that's not aligned with what we commonly think of as legal justice and thus a pointless distinction.

Isr ael is literally involved with bombing Iran right now and this is a post about it. How could you expect them not to be mentioned?

You 100% know why.

I believe no US administration ever acknowledged the ICC. By the way, the German chancellor just said he wouldn't arrest Netanyahu if he came to Germany.

It's not just a Trump thing.

Why should anybody care what some upstarts with zero moral authority at the ICC think? Nobody voted for them.

"Providing a false statement to Congress is a crime, regardless of whether you are under oath."[0]

[0] https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2019/04/five-...

If Israel wasn't there, there would be terrorists on my doorstep? That's your actual, honest claim here?

Be the cause of the terrorism, then talk of how you're the "tip of the spear" in preventing terrorism. You'd need to be special to be that kind of deluded.

With these strikes, it seems more like Israel has ample intelligence on the US government than it has on the Middle East, since even DNI concurred that there was no proof of WMDs.

They had jack. Zero. Nada.

It was ginned up BS that led to the worst foreign policy blunder in 100 years, directly creating ISIS, deaths of 500k Iraqis and kicking off the migrant crisis.

Sure glad we spent a generation of lives and treasure, and maybe the golden years of the American hegemony on that boondoggle to take care of a few crappy chemical weapons in some dusty sand pit of a country.

Chemicals are usually less efficient than normal bombs. They’re too local. You can do the same with explosives. “Iraq had explosives.”

I don't know who is downvoting PP but here's Wikipedia's article on Iraq WMDs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destr...

I don't think we have a historical precedence to what is happening here. The closest would be Israel's attack on Hezbollah which literally collapsed and led to the collapse of the Syrian regime as well.

The Iranian regime is very centralized and with Israel and the USA having air superiority and having penetrated it completely from an intelligence perspective (see Israel's perfect knowledge of the whereabouts of the previous chief of staff and the newly appointed chief of staff) it's going to be very hard for it to survive if a decision is made to remove it. There are a handful of key people that once gone there is not going to be any continuity.

The current regime is allowed to continue because of fear of chaos if it is removed, not because there isn't a capability to remove it.

It didn't literally cause a regime change but the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was essentially the last nail in the coffin for the Milosevic regime.

The key element is where the will of the people points - Milosevic was already unpopular and the bombing further united the people against him.

The few Iranians I know are against the regime, but I don't know how the wider picture looks.

Not necessarily but this is also not the end of the campaign. If Israel and US take out their ultimate bargaining chip and have air supremacy then the room to maneuver for the ayatollah is quite small. What happens next inside Iran is anyone’s guess. There have been multiple waves of very large protests in the past five years. What’s stopping mossad from delivering rifles to them from Syria or an airdrop at this point of escalation

Argentinian Junta fell after they lost the Falkland war in 1982

Japan

The US has no desire or intent to occupy Iran. It would take a year just to move enough forces to even contemplate it. Iran is mountainous which makes this a lot harder than Iraq.

It is also completely unnecessary. There are two options. Either the current regime makes a "deal" or it's going to get crippled to the point of irrelevance or removed.

Iran and Iraq are very different. Different culture, people and history. It's also worth remembering Iran is not homogeneous, only 61% of the population are Persians. There are Azeri, there are Kurds and various other ethnic/region minorities.

Iran is extremely vulnerable. It has internal issues, constantly oppressing/suppressing its people. Its economy is in terrible shape. Most of its economic engine can be easily taken out (its main oil terminals). The bulk of its military can be destroyed from the air, it has little defensive or offensive capability. They know it.

Don’t think the current guy in the white house is much into nation building. Also after Iraq and 20 years wasted in Afghanistan - Americans are less likely to care about rebuilding a country.

Well, its done now. All we can do is to hope for the better outcome and ever more powerful ideological regime is not the better outcome. Trump might just guaranteed that though. He isn’t good at this international relations and peacemakings stuff.

At least 60% of the 90 million are closet Christians or atheists in a country where you get the death penalty for renouncing islam.

You think we need to occupy them? This isn't Iraq.

It is ending a bit like Ming dynasty and Rome towards the end. Corruptions rife everywhere. Leaders try to be competent and yet ended making more mess. You can already see China is doing 5nm. Best camera phone is Huawei. Best EV in both variants models and quality and total volume sales, BYD. Tesla get decimated. Even AI China is on par. In terms of talents, you can see how well Americans read and count. In 30 years time, you need to learn Chinese and maybe Russian. I dont see America will be much viable pass the next 30 years. If you get a Dem prez, the country will be saturated with illegals. If you get JD, debrs will spiral out of control while opening a warfront in the middle east with Iran and China. This is basically empire ending scenario.

What are the chances that the peaceful, think it through, be reasonable crowd is ready to organize the next regime. Or maybe the hotheads with guns are ready to shoot first aim later.

Perhaps forcing regime changes on other countries shouldn't be a quick decision.

Saying "Khomeini" on current day Iran casts a large doubt on how much you know on the topic.

I guess it’s all about how it’s handled afterwards. Germany and Japan have become huge US allies after some proper bombings.

Just recently Trump tried to troll the Germany’s leader for it and only got a “Thank you for defeating us”.

The truth is that Iran’s regime is indeed a very shitty one and a lot of people have grievances with it but the problem is, this is about Israel and they are not any better and didn’t stand at a higher moral ground with their illegal occupation and actions that many consider genocidal.

They don’t care about the regime, they only want it to be aligned with the US and Israel. The Saudi absolute monarchy regime (something that is way worst than the Iranian one) that is directly coming from middle ages, doesn’t get the same journalistic treatment in the US. Women rights in Iran are lightyears ahead of what is happening in Saudi Arabia. But who cares? Talking about Iran regime change only is pure hypocrisy when your best friend in the region can kill anyone by just deciding it.

Israel hasn't really engaged in regime change. If anything the opposite. There was a single failed attempt to get the Christians into power in Lebanon. But mostly sort of the devil I know. We have Hussein in Jordan. We had Assad in Syria. Egypt had its own turmoils but not much Israeli involvement. The PA and Hamas were also viewed as a stabler alternative to chaos. Saudi and the emirates pretty stable. Turkey (not quite middle east but whatever) also have their internal turmoil. Iran has been stable as well.

I'm sure if we keep trying we'll get it right eventually.

Leaving aside the accuracy of this claim, "building a weapon" here means "taking the uranium they've already enriched almost to weapons-grade, and completing final assembly into a working device".

The nuclear physicists got the glory for the Manhattan Project, but the enrichment was the vast majority of the time and cost[1]. Similar ratios apply today. There is zero question that Iran's government is spending a significant fraction of its GDP on enrichment activity that would be economically absurd except as a step towards nuclear weapons--they acknowledge it proudly!

That doesn't mean these strikes were necessarily a good idea. There's no question that Iran was working actively towards a bomb though, even if "building a weapon" gets redefined narrowly to exclude almost all the actual effort.

1. https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/05/17/the-price-of-the-...

Israel has also been sabotaging their program and murdering scientists for the same time. Maybe it's an instance of the prevention paradox? Together with the fact that things sometimes naturally need MUCH more time than anticipated?

> Saddam also had WMDs, we just don't know where.

Presumably if Saddam had built a large reinforced concrete bunker deep in the side of a mountain hours from the nearest city, that might be a place fairly high on your checklist?

He's been saying this since 1992, so 33 years so far.

"Will be done in 'x' months" vs "Could be ready within 'x' months" are distinct statements.

My project managers often ask how long a project would take. I might say something like "two weeks after we're approved to start".

The PMs will wait a few months, approve the project, and then look flabbergasted when it is not instantaneously completed! "But you had all this time! Months ago you said it would take weeks!"

It isn't just the US that lies, its politicians and leaders. People in charge want to keep power, and the only ones willing to fight their way to the top don't deserve the power of office.

Folks do know. Folks knew before the Iraq war too.

But what does this generic knowledge have to do with anything, when the military action is already decided for geo-political reasons? The only decision to make is what pretext to use.

In a way, the 'iraq wmd' justification has proven it's value as a pretext - so why not tweak it and use it again?

I don't understand this argument; why would you have a large, acknowledged, underground nuclear purification unit if it wasn't for bombs? Why wouldn't you cooperate with their regular IAEA inspection if it wasn't for bombs?

Everyone in Iran who decided to follow international law and not pursue nuclear weapons including Khamenei look like clowns right now.

> The stated reason is that they were close to having nuclear weapons

No the US was claiming: "We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so." in it's 2025 Threat Assessment. The reports believes they were not working on them and Khamenei has the final authority to restart the program which he had not done. However, they believe there was growing pressured to do so.

Trump just gave the guy reason to green light a weapons project he had so far not wanted.

[pdf] https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-202...

Flies in the face of the US intelligence community’s report at the end of March [0], but, I am not floored if true. Do you have any sources?

Edit: If you mean "Verification and monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran in light of United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 (2015)" [1], that report explicitly mentions up to 60% which is not weapons grade.

[0]: https://www.newsweek.com/tulsi-gabbard-iran-nuclear-weapon-2... [1]: https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/25/06/gov2025-24.pd...

> Iran was enriching weapons grade uranium

Do you have a citation for this?

Are there other uses for highly enriched uranium? Wikipedia mentions 'research' I think.

Has the Iranian government ever explained why they are enriching uranium?

Funny you should say that. The US has Bomb Iran as a parody of Barbara Ann, available on CD:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomb_Iran

So apparently it's humourous to kill.

It's not like for like, but if you have a rabid population with low education being told to say stuff like this, they will, just because of social pressure and brainwashing.

Related, example of that brainwashing at scale:

- Killing people bad, but patriotic as a soldier.

- Killing people fine on TV, procreational entertainment bad.

- People told what to wear bad, but telling people they must be clothed, good.

- Religion says no killing, or protect those not of the same religion. People still kill, seen as no conflict of interest at all.

- Hording wealth seen as successful, yet society and the world has people suffering and illegal immigration as a consequence of not having it.

- People who don't work are grifters, but most people secretly want to quit their job and not work. Told to see the non workers as people sponging off society.

- Forced to work until your health fails, seen as acceptable.

Point being, no moral high ground because we're all brainwashed.

This is a great comment IMO :)

> Iran isn't actually a nation of pure evil, they are looking out for their own interests

Exactly. I do my best to consider them an "adversary", not an "enemy" for just that reason.

> The risk is when they are backed into a corner where using a nuclear weapon increasingly makes sense.

I'd argue there are two risks: one is that this puts Iran in a position where, if the regime survives, they will feel (and rightfully so) that the only way to secure their position is to possess them.

It also makes the same statement to other countries in similar positions.

I don't think we have a better option, sadly, but it is a consequence of this action.

Also, I don't think this makes a rational case for use. For possession, yes. For threatening to use them under certain conditions, yes - but the only rational use case for deploying nuclear weapons is if your opponent has already done the same. This became the case when the thermonuclear bomb was invented.

Is there a good write up somewhere on what a nuclear Iran would mean?

I don’t wish for more nuclear weapons, but to date, the states with them, usually (a nice apply word) don’t use them.

you don't actually need to completely destroy all the underground levels in Fordow. It is enough to cause enough damage so that the stored uranium contaminates the site, while being sealed from the outside world under the collapsed site.

They can penetrate 60m of soil. They cannot penetrate 60m of concrete. Reinforced concrete at about 5000psi would only get penetration of 8-15m.

The facility is beneath 80m of limestone which in the Qom formation is roughly equivalent to about 5000psi concrete.

Beneath the limestone, sits the facility itself which is encased in high performance concrete. So these bombs need to pen 80m of 5000psi material and then a unknown depth of high performance concrete.

Also, surely – I have no expertise – but you don't need to totally destroy the bunker to render the operation basically dead, right?

The land, roads, ingress points, elevators, security, everything around here is now FUBAR. Okay so you didn't "destroy the bunker", but how many years until it's functional again?

Media is reporting that 12 were dropped on Fordow

The bombs don't dig a hole, removing all matter for the next bomb to dig its way deeper...

ahh.. in my mind it was multiple hits spread over an area. This does make more sense.

You wouldn't expect significant radiological contamination from bombing an HEU facility deep underground? This isn't like exposed reactor core material.

That does not follow. It is not like it is an active reactor. There is no reason there should be significant radiological contamination.

it's declared to be in violation https://www.reuters.com/world/china/iaea-board-declares-iran...

> I guess it's dope, but it seems like cartoon armament to me.

The first bunker-buster :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_bomb

"According to an anecdote, the idea arose after a group of Royal Navy officers saw a similar, but fictional, bomb depicted in the 1943 Walt Disney animated propaganda film Victory Through Air Power,[Note 10] and the name Disney was consequently given to the weapon."

Not physically possible. You can get through hundreds of feet of loosely compacted soil and gravel but high performance concrete? 8-15m max.

If they built the facility out of 30,000psi concrete, they'd be lucky to pen 4 meters with a direct hit, nevermind the 80m of limestone above it.

> the Muslim world, one beset with colonial extraction for centuries

Surely you mean on the side of extractors? The Ottoman Empire practiced mass movement of people (sürgün), basically settler colonialism; earlier Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates are among the largest empires in history, and their population was mass converted to Islam.

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George Washington was the first president to take military action without congressional approval, so on the sense of precedent providing legality, it's quite an old concept.

WWII was the last time American declared war.

We were already at a declared war at that time.

I'm sure the decades of CIA meddling in the Middle East and endless wars had no effect on raising generations of US hatred. To hit someone, then call them dangerous when they say "I hate you" is real hero stuff

GBU-57 reaches 200ft of soil and gravel. Not 200ft of 5000psi limestone typical of the Qom formation in that area of Iran.

I imagine Iran will just pick a 1000-meter mountain to dig under then?

Supposedly we dropped six, but I'm interested in any information that comes out about the final damage to see if this was sufficient. Ideally this would be the beginning and end of our direct engagements in this conflict.

EDIT: I kind of wish you had broken your "commenters below" piece into separate replies, but I assume this one was directed at me:

> - I do think that US may get involved in enforcement of no-fly zone over Iran. The no-fly is necessary, and Israel just doesn't have enough resources. The further scenario that i see is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44343063

I didn't even consider a no-fly zone, and perhaps. I mean at this point, the current Iranian regime is in the most precarious situation it has ever been in whether they go for the kill against Ali Khamenei or just keep picking out the people below him and the IRGC's ability to fight. But if we do this, then we, and I guess I mean we now that we've actually bombed them, then we're committing to more than just taking out their nuclear capabilities, but we're committing to seeing a full regime change come to fruition.

To be blunt, given our most recent history in Iraq and Afghanistan, I'm still very much of the opinion that the least amount of American involvement, the better. If our bombs help curtail Iran's nuclear weapon R&D and we didn't lose a single B-2 in the process, then great, we've done some good for the world[1], but our track record on seeing regime changes through to the end has been less than fabulous.

[1] Still waiting to see how successful the mission was towards this goal by the way.

> Fordow is 300ft

You seem to believe they really have accurate information about these installations. I doubt it.

Why a no-fly zone?

no fly or not no fly, but iranian foreign minister had to ask permission from idf in order to fly out to geneva

> A dirty bomb remains viable with partially enriched materials.

A dirty bomb is basically Hollywood nonsense, and wouldn't use uranium to begin with because it isn't very radioactive.

The premise is that you put radioactive materials into a conventional explosive to spread it around. But spreading a kilogram of something over a small area is boring because you can fully vaporize a small area using conventional explosives, spreading a kilogram of something over a large area is useless because you'd be diluting it so much it wouldn't matter, and spreading several tons of something over a large area is back to "you could do more damage by just using several tons of far cheaper conventional explosives".

Uranium, especially highly enriched uranium, is not very radioactive. That's one of the reasons its useful for weapons. UF6 is chemically really nasty, but it's heavy and also you have criticality issues that limit how much you can pack into a confined space before it explosively disassembles. That is to say, it would make an extremely poor dirty bomb that would do very little. It'd scare people of course but there are far easier things they could use to achieve that.

Far more concerning is the possibility that they give it away to someone else. Enrichment is nonlinear, going from 60% to the 90% needed for weapons is a fairly trivial amount of work.

> earthquake bomb

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_bomb for others who haven't heard the term

> As I understand it enrichment is by gas centrifuge or thermal diffusion.

Centrifuges. They got them via the A. Q. Khan network. We learned about if circa 2005 from Qaddaffi who gave up his to secure peace and his safety (and it didn't turn out well for him because Obama did not respect the gentleman's deal Qaddaffi had with Bush).

Remember that Israel had more nuclear bombs than China and never signed any international as tmy treaty.

Iran is prone to earthquakes, would an earthquake bomb do more damage than that?

Even if it just damages the centrifuges, as far as I see it, it would just delay their enrichment process, severely less than total destruction of their underground base.

MOP is a conventional weapon, 30,000 lbs. Only the B-2 is rated to carry it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-57A/B_MOP

The GBU-57 was most likely used, which is non nuclear

This is nonsense.

those of you hating on this comment, the conventional weapons could not possibly work, the facility is too deep

> almost certainly be nuclear

Source:

It’s the only bomb types that make sense given how deep Fordow is buried

I'm not an expert. I just think dropping giant anvils from the sky is Loony Toons tactics. Maybe it works great! I don't know! But it's worth knowing how these things work, and how they work is: they're just super super heavy.

You are reading the wordy "silly" incorrectly.

I heard the same as well, the reference was to an interview Trump gave on Fox.

My expectation is that it was 3 rounds of 2 MOPs, hedging bets and potentially cresting a larger hole than drilling a hole one bomb at a time.

They could if they wanted to acquire nuclear weapons though. The Saudis explicitly funded the Pakistani nuclear programme with the option of access to nukes if required.