00:00Well, let's talk now to Sean Bell, the military analyst who's been with us for the past several hours.
00:06Sean, our correspondents have been mentioning this bunker-busting weapon that's described as a game-changer in this conflict,
00:14and only the United States has it. Is it a game-changer? What difference would it make?
00:20Well, it is a strange weapon because it's not really that subtle. It's not really high-tech. It's just a very, very big bomb.
00:2930,000 pounds of bomb with a particular hardened shell, a penetrator at the front with a delayed fuse.
00:37The idea of getting as deep as it can into the ground before it explodes.
00:41It can allegedly go through about 60 metres of soil, and that's the sort of distance you need to be able to do to get to these hardened facilities
00:50that is where Iran is hiding in the main bulk of its programme.
00:54Now, the problem with a 30,000-pound bomb is, to set it in context,
00:57my fighter jet when I used to fly it full of fuel was less than that weight, so I couldn't carry something like that.
01:04The only aircraft that's been designed to carry it is the American B-2 Spirit bomber,
01:09the £1 billion US Air Force bomber.
01:13And, of course, therefore, the only way to deliver that ordinance is to actually get the US involved directly.
01:19Now, it's not the only answer.
01:21The Israelis also have a £5,000 bomb, a sixth of the size, which has a similar penetration capability, just doesn't go quite as far.
01:31But if you just kept throwing them in the same hole, gradually the crater would get bigger and bigger, deeper and deeper.
01:36So the question becomes then, could Israel do this?
01:40It would take longer.
01:41Do they have enough weapons to do it?
01:43But could they eventually take that out?
01:45Because the risk of America actually getting involved is, once you've got involved, you are involved.
01:50At the moment, America isn't.
01:52This will be a key tipping point, and I suspect that's what's affecting President Trump at the moment.
01:57Well, the US being quite cagey, President Trump saying we may do it, may not get involved in this situation.
02:05Is that a strategy in itself, being unpredictable, being non-committal?
02:10President Trump was very critical in his first term that international politicians told the enemy what they were going to do before they went and did it.
02:18So he's predictably unpredictable at the moment.
02:21But actually, I think we've also got to be quite careful.
02:23We're seeing this big military build-up by the US, and a lot of media outlets are sort of saying, oh, clearly they're preparing to take action.
02:31I'm not sure that's true at all.
02:33As soon as Iran started threatening American assets in the region, this is all about deterrence, small d, that the stronger and more powerful you are, the more you deter your nation's enemies.
02:44And I suspect Iran can issue threats like that, but at the moment they're vulnerable.
02:48The last thing they want to do is get a major superpower like America also piling in.
02:54So I suspect they're just trying to be very careful, and America is just posturing to say, we're ready.
03:00Iran could, however, disrupt global supply chains, could they not?
03:04Through the Straits of Hormuz, vast amounts of shipping passes through that channel.
03:10It still has the potential to be disruptive, doesn't it?
03:14Absolutely right it does, and it depends how nuanced it wants to be with its response.
03:19I think the one thing that we've got to play on top of this is that, at its heart, this is Prime Minister Netanyahu trying to disrupt, destroy, degrade Iran's nuclear capability.
03:30But Netanyahu also regularly talks about regime change in some of his narrative.
03:34That will make a lot of countries in the region a lot more uncomfortable.
03:39Now, the one thing that actually the Straits of Hormuz would do, would start to disrupt global supply chains, would definitely get more other nations involved.
03:49And that's, again, something I suspect Iran's got to be quite careful not to do.
03:53Sean, for now, thank you very much.
03:55We'll hear more from you later in the programme.
03:56That's Sean Bell, retired Air Vice Marshal and Military Anist.
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