“We’re going to take out Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to be ready,” President Donald Trump declared Monday on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. The regime in Tehran never learns, and it never stops scheming.Fresh evidence reveals that Iran is hard at work on the deeply buried nuclear site near Natanz called Pickaxe Mountain, openly defying what remains of the fragile U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding. This blatant violation demands a clear American response: Eliminate Iran’s ability to use Pickaxe Mountain, ideally for good.Already, a senior regime adviser has called Pickaxe “the most fortified nuclear facility in the world,” while openly threatening to turn the entire region into hell if it is struck. Dug as deep as 100 meters under a mountain, the facility was engineered to survive even America’s Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-busters. Yet, that does not place it beyond the reach of U.S. military capabilities.
This is no harmless construction project. It’s Tehran’s brazen bid to salvage and restore its nuclear weapons capability after the punishing U.S. and Israeli strikes of 2025 and 2026.Trump warned about this threat months ago. In March, he revealed that even after U.S. strikes obliterated key Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, the regime was already shifting operations to a new, granite-protected site buried deeper underground. “They wanted to go a lot deeper,” Trump said, highlighting Iran’s relentless drive for a nuclear weapon.As usual, Iranian leaders insist their activities are innocent. They claim Pickaxe is merely building a centrifuge assembly plant begun in 2020. Western intelligence assesses it could house an undeclared uranium enrichment facility — even deeper than the Fordow enrichment site the United States disabled — and may have already moved centrifuges and other critical equipment inside.Satellite imagery from the Institute for Science and International Security confirms ongoing vehicle activity, tunnel work, and entrance hardening as recently as late June, despite the terms of the June 17 MOU, in which Tehran promised to “maintain the current status quo” of its nuclear program. “Status quo” does not mean pouring concrete for a hardened nuclear bunker.Prior to the MOU’s conclusion, Iran was busily hardening Pickaxe’s tunnel entrances and sealing off some against attack. The regime is advancing such work while severely restricting access by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and barring them from damaged sites entirely.The stakes are high. Before the 2025 strikes, Iran had amassed roughly 440 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium — enough for up to 11 bombs — plus additional lower-enriched material to fuel 11 more. Much of it was dispersed between Fordow, Natanz, and the Esfahan tunnels. While U.S. and Israeli action rendered many facilities, material, and centrifuges inaccessible or destroyed, serious questions remain about recoverable assets. Trump has rightly warned against any Iranian effort to snatch and further enrich this material or weaponize it at a site like Pickaxe.America did not expend blood and treasure crushing Iran’s nuclear program just to watch Tehran rebuild it underground.On Hewitt’s show, Trump left no doubt: “It is on the list. … We’re watching it closely. … We’ll probably give Pickaxe a shot relatively soon.” “We have cameras. … If they make any move, we immediately go and do whatever we have to do,” he told Fox News’s Trey Yingst on Wednesday.Washington must now demand immediate, unrestricted IAEA access to determine exactly what Iran is doing at Pickaxe. If Iran stonewalls, as it surely will, military options to disable the site must be ready and on the table.Working in tandem with direct Israeli military support, America possesses every tool needed to disable Pickaxe: precision strikes on tunnel entrances (as executed at the Isfahan tunnels), Massive Ordnance Penetrators against visible ventilation shafts (as at Fordow), and — if necessary, elite joint disablement teams trained to raid underground nuclear sites.TRUMP CALLED IRAN’S BLUFF. TEHRAN IS STILL TRYING TO PLAY HIMEven blocking Iranian access to this nuclear sanctuary would represent a durable strategic win, one that future presidents can sustain indefinitely. Once the regime is ultimately defeated, Washington can insist on full excavation and dismantlement.Iran’s latest violation proves once again the only language the regime understands is strength. Trump sees the threat clearly. Congress and U.S. military leaders should back him fully to neutralize Pickaxe and bury Iran’s nuclear dreams once and for all.Andrea Stricker is deputy director of the nonproliferation program and a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow her on X @StrickerNonpro. FDD is a Washington, D.C.-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.
