No sooner did President Trump give Iran “up to two weeks” to agree to go into serious negotiations to strip the ancient Persian nation’s ability to make and use nuclear weapons, his far left critics immediately revived the nickname “TACO.” 

This is the latest cute, smart-ass Wall Street-turned-leftist slang; this time it’s short for “Trump Always Chickens Out.” 

This came from a gross misunderstanding of his use of publicly announced way-high tariffs as a means of negotiating reasonable, low, tariffs. 

Of course, the critics started TACO before Trump proved them wrong by lowering the tariffs through successful bilateral negotiations.  But it was too “cute” and too beloved by the formerly mainstream – news media to go away.  Especially since nothing else has worked, they’re desperate to have something they can call Trump that will both “stick” and actually do him some harm.

So, when Trump gave Iran “up to two weeks” to restart negotiations, the left immediately dusted off the TACO calumny as if it was a proven fact, instead of a misinterpretation of Trump’s highly-effective negotiating process. 

Two days later, Trump showed the world – mostly Iran, but the world, and the far-left media, too – that when they whip out TACO immediately, they are only days away from looking like the idiots they truly are. 

However, the Saturday attack was not pre-meditated – or at least the timetable wasn’t set, to provide an “up to two weeks” flexible deadline.  Here’s how Saturday became “up to two weeks.” 

A day after Trump laid down this challenge, the Iranian foreign minister met with several European NATO nations, Great Britain, Germany and France – but not, pointedly, Trump’s U.S.A. 

At this conference, the Iranian spokesman made it clear, according to the Jerusalem Post, that “Iran is deliberately stalling negotiations over a new nuclear agreement to hinder the ability to impose sanctions if no agreement is reached.” 

That told Trump everything he needed to know about Iran’s lack of willingness to negotiate with integrity.  His next step was to order the strike on the three targets, making allowance for the fifteen hours needed by the B-2A Spirit stealth bombers to fly from their bases in Missouri to their target in Iran.  This timetable was also adjusted to allow for the planes to arrive over Iran in the dark of night, when stealth aircraft are best-able to avoid observation and targeting.

Here’s the background – not of TACO, but of Trump’s strike on Saturday on three Iranian nuclear sites not previously neutered by Israeli Air Force precision strikes. 

Ironically, the aircraft Israel used are all American designs, updated by Israel but still state-of-the-art fifth generation fighters, the F-15E Strike Eagle and the F-16 Block 80 Viper – but even they didn’t have the weapons needed to reach deeply-protected underground targets. 

After a week of precision strikes and a lot of success, a number of nuclear sites – those most effectively shielded by being located deep underground in mountainous territory – had not been hit because Israel didn’t have the right kind of deep-penetration munitions.  Apparently, for Fordow (at least), only the US GBU-57 MOP – Massive Ordnance Penetrator – non-nuclear weapons capable of, if used properly, penetrating targets as much as 400 or more feet below ground level.  Israel doesn’t have those weapons.

Image: USAF MOP test release crop - GBU-57A/B MOP - Wikipedia // public domain

I should mention that certain kinds of tactical nuclear weapons can also take out deep bunkers, but so far, nobody has been sufficiently insane to choose to use any kind of nuke against any kind of exceptionally deep-seated bunker.  That is sufficient reason to pray that the MOPs actually worked.

In addition to the three B-2A Spirit stealth bombers used against Fordow, the U.S. Navy joined the attack, unleashing thirty submarine-launched Tomahawk Block IV Land Attack Missiles – TLAM in mil-speak.  They struck two of Iran’s highest-value nuclear targets – Natanz and Esfahan. 

Fordow was built under a mountain.  Media experts predicted that two MOPs would be needed to destroy the deep-buried bunker, the second following the first and hitting exactly the same coordinates.  However, to be secure, Trump decided to use three bombs on each of two tunnel entrances. With luck, this will be massive overkill. 

We can count on Mossad to quickly have the intelligence we’ll need to know if three bombs reached deep enough to “retire” Fordow.  

If the news isn’t good, there is no reason why we can’t restrike the same pinpoint targets with four, five or six bunker-buster bombs each.  The ideal solution would be to set off a bunker buster UNDER the facility, because explosions always “reach up” to find release, but anything that shuts it off permanently, sealing it off from the outside, will be a win we can literally all live with.

While Fordow is well on its way to forced retirement, the other two sites – those struck by fifteen Tomahawk TLAM Block IV submarine-launched missiles – may not have been knocked out.  While the TLAM IV does have a bunker-busting warhead, it’s a much smaller weapon than the GBU-257.  To shut down Esfahan, it might take a series of strikes by multiple bunker buster bombs, as was used at Fordow. 

Fortunately, we have sufficient B-2A Spirits and enough GBU-257s to shut down not only these three targets, but any other targets Israel hit but perhaps didn’t sufficiently destroy. 

Taking out deeply buried, armored and shielded bunkers is not an exact science.  But it can be done, and we can do it.

Image: Grok, AI-generated picture, via X

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Ned Barnett is, in addition to being a contributor to American Thinker, a life-long military historian.  Earlier this century, he served as on-camera military historian on nine History Channel Programs – back when the History Channel cared about history.  He’s also published in Newsweek Japan, an article on what American military historians believe about the justification of the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

Ned works with several clients, helping them to write, publish and promote books they have written or need help in actually writing their books.  A strong, lifelong conservative, Ned can be contacted at 702-561-1167 or nedbarnett51@gmail.com.