David Albright is the widely respected and nonpartisan nuclear physicist who is the founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nonprofit research organization.
A week ago, Albright took to X to respond to a CNN report that President Donald Trump is considering using MOABs against Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain area, suspected of being a nuclear site.
“The rationale of using a MOAB is that the blast is so violent that it can overcome typical blast traps of tunnel entrances,” Albright wrote. “It is like a small nuke; it is difficult to engineer entrances to withstand that level of a blast.”
“The goal may be the confirmed closure of known access routes at Pickaxe, creating a monitored condition,” Albright continued. “Reopening is an observable change requiring action. That can be valuable even when the condition of the underground chambers would remain unknown. Moreover, MOABs would destroy surface support structures and utilities.”
Albright went on to note that Iran’s Fordow nuclear weapons facility was destroyed by earth penetrators, GBU-57s, reaching the underground halls via crashing through ventilation systems, and that while ventilation shafts appear to also exist at Pickaxe, it is uncertain how they reach the main underground halls.
This U.S. Department of Defense handout photo shows the Massive Ordinance Air Blast weapon March 11, 2003 at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. The 21,000 pound bomb was dropped from a C-130 Hercules aircraft at the Eglin test range March 11, 2003. According to the DoD the MOAB is the largest non-nuclear conventional weapon in existence. (Photo by DoD/Getty Images)
" data-large-file="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/image-11.png?w=1024" src="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/image-11.png?w=1024" alt="The Massive Ordinance Air Blast weapon." class="wp-image-4767085" srcset="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/image-11.png 1024w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/image-11.png?resize=300,180 300w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/image-11.png?resize=768,460 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px">
A Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB, weapon is seen on March 11, 2003, at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. (Defense Department via Getty Images)
“But a MOAB on a ventilation shaft may be worth trying, if there is one to spare,” Albright concluded. “The huge blast would be on the surface. Pickaxe is an isolated site, so neighboring communities would be unlikely to be affected by the blast.”
Would it make sense to first deploy the GBU-57s used at Fordow against any ventilation shafts and then the MOAB(s) as needed? Hang a sign on the ruins — “Do not open again” — and then wait for the blockade to work its inevitable collapse of the regime?
The U.S. military can accomplish any mission the commander in chief sets for it. The Navy’s blockade is tightening the noose so quickly that little more is required than destroying Pickaxe, along with any part of the Islamic Republic’s defense industrial base that is back online.
The president ordered the actions of Operation Midnight Hammer and Operation Epic Fury as necessary steps that presidents had only threatened for three decades, beginning with Bill Clinton.
Operation Epic Fury is going to be understood as the most significant decision of his presidency and the one that took great political courage because of the impact on domestic politics. The Islamic Republic has been a malignancy on the world since 1979. It needed to be confronted and, if necessary, collapsed. Given many chances after Operation Midnight Hammer, Ayatollah Khamenei proved impervious to pressure or reason. The regime has acted like fanatics have acted throughout history.
In the closing weeks of the midterm campaigns in the U.S., I hope some Republicans make the straightforward argument that, having tried everything, including the failed JCPOA, pallets of cash, and Midnight Hammer, no other option was left to Trump except Epic Fury followed by the blockade. At any time since Clinton, the ayatollahs and the IRGC could have taken a different path, but they refused because they are religious fanatics acting on end-times Twelver theology.
Leftist activists arguing that the mission is bad and must be stopped forget that President George W. Bush made the most significant and courageous act of his presidency when he announced “the surge” on Jan. 10, 2007, in a televised address to the nation from the White House — two short months after the GOP got “thumped” in the 2006 midterm elections. Bush persevered, and Iraq, the region, and the world are vastly better off than had Saddam and his sadistic sons remained in power. Trump will have the same power in January 2027 as Bush did 20 years earlier. And he will finish the job regardless of November’s results.
It would be beneficial for everyone if Republicans on the campaign trail made these points in the closing two weeks: Trump did what had to be done. It did cost every American not just at the pump but across every commodity that relies on oil. He did it because the cost of not doing it was so very much higher.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE ‘MOTHER OF ALL BOMBS’ AS TRUMP LOOKS TO END IRAN WAR
“Trust the people” was Churchill’s constant refrain. Laying out again and again why this regime could not be allowed to “break out” to nukes is the missing element from campaign 2026.
Trump has indeed made that case — “Iran can never have a nuke” is a feature of every speech — but most GOP candidates avoid grappling with it. A mistake, that. There is no substitute for victory, and it is in sight.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
