Amid the US strikes on Iran's Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, a remark made by far-right commentator and journalist Tucker Carlson has stoked fears that the war could escalate. Carlson, a friend-turned-foe of US President Donald Trump, said on Sunday that Trump could launch a nuclear strike against Iran under pressure from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Interestingly, Carlson's statement came a day before the US struck Qeshm Island in response to Iran's shooting down of a US aircraft on Monday evening. The journalist has predicted that the Trump administration may be "within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran".
In a post on X, Carlson said: "The target would be Pickax Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence claims the Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program. No conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place,” declared Carlson.
He said Netanyahu is “cornered and desperate” after losing his governing majority in last week’s election and has been pushing hard for a nuclear strike. Carlson said Netanyahu calls Trump about it every day.
He added that such a strike could “radically accelerate the destruction” caused by the previous round of fighting across the Middle East and Gulf.
“Fallout from a ground explosion at Pickax Mountain would contaminate the Persian Gulf, poisoning the water supply for 100 million people,” Carlson claimed. “And those are just some of the immediate consequences for the region. The rest of the world is every bit as exposed. No country other than the United States has ever used a nuclear weapon in war. Some would like to. An American nuclear attack on Iran would set a new precedent.”
However, when asked about this, the Trump administration rubbished the claim. Trump has publicly eschewed their use and has made it clear it would be by a conventional weapon if he made the call.
The White House dismissed Carlson’s assertion. “President Trump has a wide range of options available regarding Iran, and he will do what is right to keep the American people safe,” a White House official told us. “Tucker Carlson lost his way long ago due to a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, and he has no insight into military planning or the Commander-in-Chief’s thinking.”
Experts too downplay the chances that Trump would ever order a nuclear strike on Iran, though they didn't completely rule it out. “Is it likely? No,” Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association (ACA) and publisher and contributor for the organization’s monthly journal, Arms Control Today, told The War Zone.
Kimball, however, added that it was "possible that an unstable, desperate president who has sole authority to authorise nuclear weapons use, would do so, yes".
Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, too thinks it is unlikely.
