Hours before the 60-day US-Iran MoU expired on Mondayformer US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed that high-level strategy meetings were underway in the US discussing the potential use of nuclear weapons against Iran. In her X post, Greene wrote, “I’m not speculating, I know. And it’s pure evil.”
The former Trump ally did not offer evidence to back the claim but warned of a nuclear holocaust and called for an immediate end to the fighting. In recent weeks, Trump has reiterated America’s top goal in the war is to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and demanded Iran put up a “white flag of surrender”.
Under Operation Midnight Hammer on June 22 last year, the US tried to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities. US bombers struck at Iranian nuclear sites in Isfahan, Natanz and the deeply-buried Fordow complex. US B-2 aircraft dropped 14-ton GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators, the largest non-nuclear weapons in US inventory, on the site.
Subsequent assessments by the US strategic community and the IAEA concluded that the strikes had badly damaged but not completely destroyed the targets. Iran is believed to retain around 440 kgs of Highly Enriched Uranium containing up to 60 per cent of U-236 (It takes 90 per cent to produce a nuclear weapon), the destruction of which was part of talks between Iran and the US. Both sides have since hardened their stance since the July 17 MoU.
Iran has tightened its grip over the Strait of Hormuz. Given Trump’s recent statements and recent US moves to end the stalemate, it is possible the US could reach for its tactical nuclear weapons. Unlike strategic weapons that are designed to destroy entire cities, tactical nukes are designed for special battlefield tasks. They have an explosive yield of between 1 kiloton and 100 kilotons.
Nuclear weapons have been used only once in conflict – the August 1945 atomic bombings of Japan. Hiroshima was bombed with a 15 kt device, and Nagasaki, a 22 KT weapon. The bombings resulted in the only surrender obtained through the use of airpower.
If Trump does indeed authorise the use of tactical weapons to knock out Iran’s nuclear facilities and deny it the bomb, he would opt for the B61 thermonuclear bomb. The B61, roughly the length of a small city car, is the longest serving weapon in the US nuclear arsenal. It first entered service in 1963.
It is a gravity bomb, which means it free falls on its target. The bomb has a variable yield of between 0.3 KT to around 400 KT. The yields can be programmed depending on the target, leading to the bomb being known as a ‘dial- a-yield’ weapon.
The B61 has two variants, the B61-12 and the B61-13. The B61-12 is the only forward-deployed nuclear bomb in the US arsenal, stored in vaults in Germany, Italy, Turkey, Belgium and the Netherlands. It is part of NATO’s nuclear sharing programme and small enough to be carried by fighter aircraft like the F-35 and F-16.
The B61-13 is a variant which began entering service only around May 2025. It is meant to be carried by US bombers like the B-21 Raider. The Pentagon says the B61-13 will “provide us with additional flexibility’ by providing the President with additional options against certain harder and large-area military targets”.
The Federation of Atomic Scientists believes the B61-13’s relatively high yield and accuracy will likely enable the bomb to strike underground targets ‘with yields equivalent to a surface-burst weapon of more than one megaton’. This is because of a phenomenon called ‘ground-shock coupling’ where a weapon’s energy is transferred onto the ground rather than dissipated into the air.
Given that a majority of Iranian sites are in remote regions away from human habitation, strikes on these sites pose relatively limited radiation risk to the region.
Experts warn features like these are worrying as they make tactical nukes attractive to use as weapons of warfighting. “They imply a risk of escalation and recourse to extreme measures, or even an increase in aggressive behaviour shielded by nuclear weapons,” a 2023 study by a French military think tank IRSEM concludes.
What will weigh on Trump’s mind, however, is the baggage that comes with such a strike – the prospect of having used a nuclear weapon only for the second time in history, not to end a world war, but as a face-saver to exit a deeply unpopular and increasingly unwinnable conflict.
– Ends
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