TOI Correspondent From Washington: Somewhere in Washington DC, the nuclear clock is apparently ticking. At least according to Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News host and penitent Trump loyalist, who says the U.S President may be hours away from ordering a nuclear strike on Iran under pressure from Benjamin Netanyahu. The target, according to Carlson, is Pickaxe Mountain, a heavily fortified underground complex near Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility.“Bibi (Netanyahu) calls Trump about it every day,” Carlson quoted an “informed observer” as saying in a lengthy post on X, claiming that the Israeli PM is “cornered and desperate” after last week’s election results, and he can’t form a government unless Trump helps him. “The only military option is a nuclear strike,” Carlson wrote, alleging that the Trump administration has quietly rewritten the U.S nuclear doctrine since February to make battlefield nuclear weapons easier to use.Carlson also dragged in India, Pakistan, and other nations into his alarmism. A U.S strike, he warned, would unleash radioactive contamination across the Persian Gulf, potentially trigger nuclear escalation involving Russia, India, Pakistan and North Korea, and bring about World War III.“After the first nuclear strike, World War Three is inevitable. That war would be short and final,” he wrote, without explaining why others would get involved.Carlson has been sounding variations of this alarm for months, suggesting that even Armageddon has trouble keeping appointments. The latest post was greeted with ridicule in serious policy circles despite the adventurism of Trump and his MAGA cohorts. Indeed, there is a rather significant gap between the gravity of the claims and the evidence offered to substantiate it.Neither the White House nor the Pentagon has confirmed a change in nuclear doctrine. Carlson identifies no named American official, produces no documentary evidence and relies on anonymous sources for his central claims. Trump himself told Newsmax in October: “I wouldn’t use nuclear. We don’t have to.”Still, U.S hardliners have been raising the prospect of an imminent nuclear confrontation with Iran for months, repeatedly drumming up the bogey of Tehran acquiring nuclear weapons within weeks or months. Carlson’s own interview in March with former National Counterterrorism Center director Joe Kent was revealing. Asked whether Iran had been on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon, Kent replied: “No, they weren’t three weeks ago when this started, and they weren’t in June either.” He also said there was no intelligence indicating that Iran was about to abandon its policy against developing nuclear weapons.The American bogey of Iran getting nuclear weapons within weeks has now acquired a life of its own with one widely circulated meme features an ancient stone tablet supposedly dating to 1750 BC, bearing the inscription: “Iran is only weeks away from developing nuclear weapons.” Another version has archaeologists discovering a 3,000-year-old tablet warning that Persia was weeks away from the bomb.Carlson is also accused of having his own agenda in cranking up the nuclear alarm. Once among Trump’s most enthusiastic media champions, he has become one of the most consequential dissenting voices within the MAGA movement, and his break with Trump has been particularly pronounced over Israel and Iran.Carlson has argued that America should not subordinate its foreign policy to Israeli interests or be dragged into another Middle Eastern war. He has attacked Netanyahu’s influence in Washington, questioned the rationale for American military intervention and challenged the longstanding assumption among Republican conservatives that supporting Israel is an unquestionable article of faith. The nickname “Qatarlson”, popularised by his critics, including Laura Loomer and other pro-Israel conservatives, suggests that his criticism of Israel reflects Qatari influence rather than independent conviction.There are also larger ideological divisions at play here. One faction of MAGA believes America First means resisting foreign entanglements, particularly wars undertaken for Israel; another regards unwavering support for Israel as integral to U.S national security and conservative politics. Carlson has become a lightning rod in that battle, with critics accusing him of trafficking in conspiratorial anti-Israel rhetoric, while supporters view him challenging standard establishment thinking.
