Trump Probably Won’t Nuke Iran. What He’ll Do Instead Is Worse.

Four reasons the mushroom cloud stays on YouTube, and five reasons you should be more concerned about the alternative.

Jack Hopkins

Oct 30, 2026

Trump Probably Won’t Nuke Iran. What He’ll Do Instead Is Worse.

Four reasons the mushroom cloud stays on YouTube, and five reasons you should be more concerned about the alternative.

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #1,071: Friday, October 30th, 2026.

Let me save you some sleep.

Every few days somebody sends me the same message: “He’s going to nuke Iran.” Usually with a link to a YouTube thumbnail of Pickaxe Mountain and a mushroom cloud.

I understand the fear. Yeah…he could very well do that. This is a man who killed a head of state, started a war without Congress, and fired the Pentagon’s top planner last week while deciding whether to start the war again. The normal rules don’t apply to him. I know.

But I’ve looked hard at this one, and then men and women who are the experts on this, and I’ll give it to you straight: the odds of an American nuclear weapon going off over Iran in the next year…I believe..are low.

Not zero. Low. Single digits, and the small end of single digits.

Here’s why.

Reason one: he already said no, and this time it’s the kind of no he keeps.

Two weeks ago Trump ruled out nuclear weapons against Iran, on the record, unprompted. Now, his word on timing is worthless. “Two weeks” meant he’d already decided. “No decision yet” meant the bombers were fueled.

I’ve written about that pattern and I’ll keep writing about it.

But…his word on category is a different animal. Trump wants to be the man who ended wars, the Nobel Prize guy, the dealmaker. Breaking an 81-year taboo makes him the other thing…forever. He knows it. His vanity, for once, is working for us.

Reason two: the chain of command is the real wall.

A nuclear strike on a country that hasn’t hit the American homeland and has no nuclear weapon is the clearest example of an unlawful order that exists.

Every officer between the Oval Office and a B-2 cockpit has been trained on exactly this scenario. STRATCOM has spent years, quietly, thinking about refusal.

The B-2 is the only aircraft built to deliver the GBU-57 bunker buster. Against Pickaxe Mountain, that may not be enough.

Trump can fire a planner. He’s fired plenty. But…he replaced them with careerists…not fanatics. Careerists don’t end their lives at The Hague for a man who’d disown them by lunch.

Reason three: it loses the war the day it’s used.

Think about who has to cooperate for anything in the Gulf to work. Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain. Every one of them hosts American forces. Every one of them would be forced…by their own populations…to kick us out the morning after.

The oil shock would make the Hormuz mess look like a gas station running out of premium. Israel would own the fallout for a generation. And…every country sitting on the nuclear fence…would jump off on the wrong side, starting with Iran itself.

The hawks around him understand this. Rubio understands this. The Israelis understand this. A nuke doesn’t finish the job. It hands Iran the job.

Reason four: there’s an easier lie available.

Pickaxe Mountain is buried under granite deeper than our best bunker buster can reach. That’s the real reason the “Mother of All Bombs” is in the new plan; it’s a psychological weapon they’re reaching for because they don’t have a physical answer.

Pickaxe Mountain, in the Karkas Mountains, Iran.

But Trump doesn’t need a physical answer. He needs a victory speech. After Fordow, he declared the program “obliterated,” and the press moved on.

He’ll do it again. Drop something enormous…say the mountain is entombed…and go play golf. Far cheaper than a nuclear weapon and, for his purposes…just as effective.

So relax about the mushroom cloud.

Now…let me take that relaxation away from you, because I’ve never sugar-coated anything for you, and I’m not about to start now.

What he’ll do instead is the part that should scare you.

The nuke is the one catastrophe with a built-in brake.

Almost everything else on his menu has no brake at all. Here’s what I’m actually watching.

1. A “short, intense” war that isn’t short.

That phrase is being passed to Gulf allies right now. A week of massive strikes on leadership, energy, and infrastructure, beginning after the polls close.

The plan assumes Iran folds. Iran did not fold in February, in March, or in July. Its regime is paranoid, cornered…and has been told by its own hardliners to build a bomb and leave the NPT.

What happens when week one becomes month three? Ground troops. Not an invasion, they’ll say. “Securing” nuclear sites. Special operators at Pickaxe Mountain. And…then we have Americans inside Iran…and no one in this administration has thought one hour past that.

The Army just rehearsed digging mass graves for the first time since Korea. They weren’t rehearsing for nothing. (and, resist any hype about it being so they can bury US…here in the homeland. That’s NOT what they’re practicing for.)

2. Strangling the Strait and crashing the world economy.

The naval blockade is already in place. Iran has already mined the Hormuz exits; three tankers burned this week.

A full-on energy war means Iran hits Gulf oil infrastructure, we hit theirs, and the price of oil does something no central bank can fix. That’s not a Middle East problem. That’s your mortgage, your job, and a global recession with Trump’s name on it going into 2028.

3. Using the war to break the election.

This is the one I’d put real money on. A president who pledged no attack before November 3 and then attacks November 4 has told you what the election meant to him.

Now…imagine a bad week in the war…protests in the streets…and the Insurrection Act on his desk. Troops deployed “to protect critical infrastructure” in Democratic cities. Mail disrupted. Certification delayed.

He doesn’t need a nuke to end the republic. He needs a war, a crisis, and a reason. He’s building all three.

4. Dragging in Russia or China.

Iran isn’t alone. Moscow supplies it. Beijing buys its oil. A strike on Iranian energy infrastructure that kills Chinese workers, or a Russian “advisor” dead in a bunker, is how regional wars become something else. Trump’s instinct in a crisis is to escalate until the other guy blinks.

Putin doesn’t blink. Xi doesn’t have to.

5. A hollowed-out military that can’t say no.

The purge of generals isn’t a side story. It’s the story. The men who would have walked into the Oval Office and said “sir, this won’t work” are gone.

What’s left are people who learned that candor gets you fired on a Wednesday…with no replacement named. Every bad decision on this list gets easier when no one in the room is allowed to object.

Here’s the bottom line.

The nuclear nightmare is the one you can mostly cross off. The system has one real tripwire left…and it’s there.

Everything else has no tripwire. A conventional war with no exit, an economic collapse, a domestic crackdown wrapped in a flag, a great-power collision.

Those don’t require anyone to violate the laws of war. They just require the next six weeks to go the way he wants them to.

Stop watching for the mushroom cloud. Watch November 4th.

*You’ll find the sources section meatier for this article than normal. Something this serious deserves it.

#HoldFast

Back soon.

-Jack

Jack Hopkins

P.S. The polls close Tuesday night. The strike plans are approved and waiting. Forces are on a 96-hour clock.

If you read nothing else from me this month, read this: the week of November 4 is the most dangerous week of this presidency so far, and almost nobody is treating it that way. Decide now how you’ll respond. He’s already decided how he’ll act.

P.P.S. Yes, paid subscribers get some perks. I’m not going to list them. The one that matters most is this: when you upgrade, you’re the reason The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter exists, and the reason I’m at this desk writing for you seven days a week.

That’s not a perk. That’s the whole damn thing. If you can, upgrade. If you can’t, stay, read, and share. Either way, thank you.

Sources

Trump ruling out nuclear weapons; the MOAB plan

Pickaxe Mountain and the limits of bunker busters

The “finish the job” threats and post-midterm strike planning

The pre-election pledge and Trump’s history of misdirection on timing

The war so far, the killing of Khamenei, and the blockade

Strait of Hormuz, mines, and tanker attacks this week

The purge of military leadership

Mass-grave training

Russia and China’s role

The Insurrection Act and the election

Mar-a-Lago air defenses (context)

Karen Connell

35m

What you write is scarier than Hell and a lot more real. Thank you for going the extra mile

2 replies by Jack Hopkins and others

Deb

32m

I had a distinct hmmm yesterday….. went to see the Musk documentary. Scary in and of itself and not for the facts revealed, necessarily. It was my realization of what he and the tech oligarchs grew up with…. very violet and realistic video games and dystopian sci-fi. That mindset plus huge $$$ is frightening all on its own given his propensity for wanting power…

But….. I digress…. on the way home I stopped at my local grocery to buy some chicken that is considered ‘premium’ as it’s not mass produced and a bit healthier. For the first time EVER, there was a sign saying 6 packages per person on chicken thighs…. A bell went off in my head… are people stocking up sensing things are about to get a little ‘interesting’ shall we say??

The non-nuke scenarios you’ve laid out are very concerning. I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t bother me AND not a damn thing I can do about it….. so doing my best to make sure the larder is well stocked, there’s some cash on hand and pushing everywhere I can for people to vote….

Thank you Jack for keeping us as sane as possible. #HoldFast

1 reply by Jack Hopkins

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