Part Two: All The Way To The Bunker – No Other Solution Is Possible

Yigal Carmon | MEMRI | April 1, 2026

A 1947 photo of the Führerbunker, the last headquarters Hitler used during WWII. Photo by Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-V04744 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, Wikipedia

Part One of this series, which can be read here, described why President Trump has no choice but to fight the Iranian regime all the way to its bunker just as the United States fought Hitler all the way to his bunker. The main reason mentioned in Part One was that the Iranian regime is a fanatical apocalyptic and messianic sect that has sought “death to America” since Day One of the revolution in 1979, applying this doctrine over the years resulting in hundreds of American casualties. This sect is a total minority – even within Shi’a Islam, which is itself ten percent of the world of Islam – that will simply not accept any deal. Part Two, below, adds three more arguments that make a deal impossible for President Trump.

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The regime still holds in secret locations reportedly 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent. To move from 60 to 90 percent and to devise any type of nuclear weaponry or device of any kind is relatively easy and doable. According to three main regime figures they already have the capability to use a tactical nuclear device.[1]

Argument One: The Nuclear Stockpile Cannot Remain In The Iranian Regime’s Hands

The regime still holds in secret locations reportedly 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent.[2] To move from 60 to 90 percent and to devise any type of nuclear weaponry or device of any kind is relatively easy and doable. Indeed, the Iranian regime built that capability precisely for that purpose. While insisting about a nonexistent fatwa[3] and claiming that they do not want nuclear weapons but to enrich uranium for civilian use, they have been preparing precisely for the purpose of building a nuclear weapon. The 20-percent enriched uranium that they have in Bushehr is sufficient for medical use, let alone importing medical nuclear devices. There is no meaningful civilian justification for having 60-percent-enriched uranium.

President Trump cannot let this enriched uranium remain in the hands of this regime – he simply cannot. To do so would be suicidal for America and the West in general. Since the Iranian regime does not accept any negotiations under which this enriched uranium will leave Iran, President Trump must go all the way to take control of it. This may be also the explanation for the heavy bombing in recent days in the Isfahan area, which is believed to be the area where this enriched uranium and the centrifuges used to enrich it are hidden.

Argument Two: The Iranian Regime’s Closure Of The Strait Of Hormuz

As if themselves goading President Trump to go all the way, the Iranian fanatical apocalyptic messianic regime has decided to close the Strait of Hormuz and create an international energy crisis. America and the West can arrange a flow of oil that circumvents Iranian oil, but this will take time, which will mean allowing the regime with all its hostility to survive and regroup until this new energy flow is arranged. This is also something that the president cannot permit. The closure of the strait is an attempt by Iran to break the resolve of President Trump and the Western world. President Trump cannot just leave the strait in the hands of the Iranian regime because that would mean handing all the Gulf states – Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain – into the hands of that regime, as well as Egypt, Jordan, and other beneficiaries of Gulf oil in Europe. President Trump may think that they deserve it since they do not join him in securing their own energy flow but this has implications far beyond energy. It is leaving the Sunni world – including the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait – in the hands of the Iranian regime. It will not only be a total defeat; it will endanger America’s standing in the world.

Argument Three: Iran Continues To Attack American Bases

The regime continues to make messianic and apocalyptic threats and to attack American targets. It insists that the war continue, having advanced its own terms under which the war can end, including throwing America out of its bases in the Middle East, the payment of reparations to Iran, the takeover of the Strait of Hormuz as an Iranian internal waterway, and “the prosecution and extradition of anti-Iran media agents [in the West].”[4] It is as though the regime is telling President Trump: “You may be done with us, but we are not done with you: We are going to kill you.”[5] They attack American targets anywhere in the region and they will not stop. This is another reason why he cannot simply declare victory and leave – to do so would be retreating under fire.

No Other Solution Than Defeating The Iranian Regime

All three added arguments – holding highly enriched uranium, closing the Strait of Hormuz, and attacking American bases – are steps that the regime takes actively. Internally, some regime figures attack Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi for talking to the West.[6] These three arguments are additional reasons why President Trump will have to go all the way to the bunker.

Only when the Iranian regime is crushed and defeated will it be possible for a local leader like Konrad Adenauer[7] to rise up, who, as mayor of cologne, was a minor local personality before becoming chancellor of West Germany and a statesman at the European and international level in 1949. Once this tiny group of messianic and apocalyptic fanatics that rules Iran is totally crushed and defeated, there will also be a need for Nuremberg-style trials. They will be the Qom trials, named for the city that is the center of extremist Shi’ite religious seminaries.

Very few believed in the last years of WWII that the end of Nazism was coming soon and that a different Germany could rise atop its wreckage, but it happened. President Trump is trying in every way to come to an understanding with the ayatollahs’ regime, but it is impossible, just as it was impossible to come to an understanding with Hitler.

*Yigal Carmon is founder and president of MEMRI.