Will he or won't he? The decision to bomb Iran's Fordo nuclear facility will shape the rest of Trump's presidency.

As six B-2 stealth bombers head towards Guam, perhaps carrying a lethal payload, the world awaits the most important decision of Trump's tenure.

Let’s get the easy part out of the way up top. Iran does not deserve a nuclear weapon. It has shown no desire to recognize Israel. Its representatives routinely shout, “Death to America!” It has spread terror and mayhem throughout the world through its proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Even the Sunni Arab world is pretty much in agreement that the Ayatollahs who run this barbaric theocratic state are no friends of peace and cannot be trusted.

At the same time, regime change in the Islamic Republic will by no means bring the desired reforms we seek. We learned the hard way in Egypt, Iraq, and Libya that the evil that comes after evil is often more diabolical. The U.S. President needs to make very clear that we do not seek the overthrow of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or his country. That’s for the Iranian people to decide. As we have seen throughout the Middle East, the percentage of freedom-loving, westward-leaning citizens in any Muslim dictatorship is a distinct minority. The vast majority are Islamic nutballs. And that is not going to change with a regime change in Iran.

That leaves the U.S. with a very narrow but decidedly impactful decision to make regarding Iran’s nuclear arsenal. It has to go. But how it goes is a matter of immense global importance.

Option one: further negotiations. This has the advantage of keeping the ayatollahs in the game and the restive Arab street somewhat quiescent. The Iranians would have to demonstrate a good-faith effort to allow rigorous inspections of all their reactors. As Democrat Chris Coons said yesterday on CNN, “inspections would be broader, deeper, more continuous, and they would abandon all of their nuclear enrichment program. And that would require them opening up all of their sites to continuous monitoring, and, frankly, actions to decommission what’s left of their nuclear program.” It would mean an end to this pretense of a civilian nuclear program. As Trump said yesterday, “They are sitting on one of the largest piles of oil in the world. I don’t know why they need that” [nuclear] “for civilian work.”

With the success of the Israeli strikes, the conversation has already shifted. It’s now a question of Iran giving up nuclear power entirely. Iran realizes the only leverage it has over the world is the threat of a nuclear bomb. But given the option of giving up its nuclear program or facing an all-out war with the U.S., the decision may be simple. It avoids all-out war, and plays the long game because Allah knows Iran is NEVER entirely giving up its nuclear ambitions.

Option two: the U.S. takes out the Fordo nuclear facility, the primary location where Iran is believed to be developing nuclear weapons, and possibly other Iranian nuclear sites. It would require at least four of our Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) delivered in quick succession to destroy the deeply buried and fortified Fordo core—about 300 feet below the surface––without radioactive fallout. We have sixty of these bad boys, technically known as GBU-57/B B bombs. No one else has any. There is a special plane, the B-2, that flies these bombs at altitude without being shot down.

The downside risk of dropping bombs is that they might not fully work, they may not reach the core of Iran’s Fordo facility, and they may not completely obliterate Iran’s nuclear capability. Moreover, they could cause the leak of atomic radiation. While some inspectors have found no radiation at Fordo, others speculate that Iran can already make several dirty bombs elsewhere. In destroying the capability there and beyond, we could ignite a full-scale nuclear explosion.

It also might ignite a broader regional conflict, with reprisal attacks against U.S. military, industrial, and diplomatic assets, attacks by Iranian sleeper cells, and an Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The unknowns are pretty significant and have undoubtedly caused the Trump Administration considerable concern.

Third, we do nothing. We would continue to support Israel in its war effort, providing needed intel, shooting down Iranian missiles, as Israel continues to take out top-level Iranian nuclear personnel and military leaders. But we stay out of the direct fray. This leaves the nuclear question undecided, though Israel is making headway. We don’t try to take out the nuclear facilities. We let Israel work its magic in the hopes that it degrades Iran’s atomic capability sufficiently to push back talk of a bomb several years.

As of now, just before noon Pacific Standard Time on Saturday, June 21, it appears the U.S. has possibly made a decision. Six B-2 stealth bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri are en route to a U.S. base in Guam. The world nervously awaits what’s next.