Why Pickaxe Mountain could become Iran’s next nuclear flashpoint - analysis

ByYONAH JEREMY BOBJULY 21, 2026 18:25Updated: JULY 21, 2026 19:24In a July 13 interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show, US President Donald Trump said, "We're going to take out Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to be ready," while in another breath said, "We see no activity there."This second part of Trump's statements about Iran's nuclear facility at Pickaxe Mountain- that there is no activity there, or, as the hawkish Institute for Science and International Security think tank has put it, that the facility is still not operational- is a major reason that neither the US president nor Israel has ordered a strike to date.All top US and Israeli defense sources on the issue have also told the Jerusalem Post in several recent classified briefings to date that there is no current threat from the site, and that the best reason to target it would at most be to eliminate a potential future threat.All of these views contradict Tuesday's Wall Street Journal report and CNN's stunning reports that Israeli intelligence has told the US that Iran has moved thousands of centrifuges and also enriched uranium to Pickaxe Mountain.At press time, none of the several sources which had recently told the Post that there was no current threat at Pickaxe Mountain had clarified the matter despite several attempts by the Post to get to the bottom of the dispute.Satellite imagery from Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility June 22, 2025. (credit: MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES/VIA REUTERS )As recently as June 30, the Post received indications that Pickaxe Mountain was still not a major priority for the Israeli defense establishment, though the Post has regularly asked about it since 2021.There is another reason why the US (Trump) and Israel have not struck Pickaxe Mountain to date.Lessons from Fordow nuclear facilityPreviously, top US and Israeli sources confirmed that although the US succeeded during Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025 in destroying Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility, which was located under a mountain, the Iranians had proved that they could dig even deeper, to an extent that even the American rock-penetrating bunker busters, which Israel does not possess, would be ineffective.The Post first reported about Iran building the Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facility even deeper than Fordow in 2021.While the facility has still not been considered to be operational, on June 4 the Post reported it had received confirmation from both top US and Israeli sources about concerns of the viability of destroying it from the air.Some top American and Israeli officials view Pickaxe Mountain – along with the 60% uranium covered with rubble under Iran’s nuclear facilities – as one of the two remaining greatest nuclear concerns should it become operational and should Iran succeed at moving critical nuclear assets there, since this could give them a sort of “zone of immunity.”But this would be a future threat and not a current one, giving little reason to target the facility now, especially since the US and Israel didn’t do so in either June 2025 or early 2026. Since the crisis with Iran started in December 2025, Trump has clearly said publicly that he does not want to send the necessary large US ground forces into Iran to destroy Pickaxe Mountain or to seize the 60% uranium.Even as Trump has started flirting with the idea of a targeted ground operation in the Strait of Hormuz or threatened to attack Pickaxe Mountain on July 13, the sense was that he was opening the door, at most, to a possible aerial attack on the nuclear facility.What is more, given that Israel is now worried about whether Trump will make Iran agree to neutralize the 60% or 20% enriched uranium – the top nuclear threat and priority to be neutralized – until this past week, less attention and emphasis had been placed on Pickaxe Mountain.At most, it could be said that Israel was conscious of Iran’s large-scale plans to transfer more of its strategic resources underground to make it more difficult to strike them from the air and is keeping an eye on the issue in a more general way.Although the US pulled off a ground operation over multiple days to rescue two shot-down American pilots in Iran, the Post understands that top American generals have pressed Trump not to attempt a ground operation to seize the 60% uranium or to attack Pickaxe Mountain, since they believe this operation could take months and be far more dangerous, involving far more American soldiers who remain vulnerable to attack.Why Pickaxe might still be on the strike listSo why might Trump still strike?First, if Israel has suddenly realized that all of its prior assessments until a week or so ago were wrong – and that Iran somehow moved thousands of centrifuges and uranium to Pickaxe Mountain under the Israeli defense establishment’s nose – the facility may now be viewed as a more current threat, not just a future one.Further, even if the facility cannot be destroyed from the air, attacks on Fordow and other nuclear facilities have shown that aerial strikes can severely damage and disrupt whatever nuclear hardware and operations may be located at a given facility.Even if there are no nuclear assets there yet, and The Wall Street Journal and CNN reports are straw men for some mysterious agenda, damaging the facility, even without destroying it, could be a way to get the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attention in a way that striking less strategic assets near the Strait of Hormuz has failed to do to date.At the same time, damaging the facility might not provoke a longer new war with Iran the way that striking the regime’s new leaders might.Put simply, it could be a way for the US to draw blood while leaving an exit ramp to return to a deal.For Israel, if there are threatening nuclear assets already located in the facility, convincing the US to strike it could remove or delay a future, serious potential threat. Alternatively, such a strike could fail and embarrass the US and embolden Iran to move forward with whatever operations it has started at the facility or had considered starting there.Regardless of what comes next, Pickaxe Mountain’s significance has risen to a much higher level in the broader media, and the issue is not likely to go away.Follow us on Google