By Arman Shariati

During the 12-day imposed war in June last year, Israeli aircraft, followed by American B-2 bombers, struck the Khondab nuclear reactor, the Natanz enrichment plant, the Fordow enrichment plant, and the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center in quick succession.

The so-called ‘Operation Midnight Hammer’ alone reportedly involved the use of at least fourteen GBU-57A/B bunker-buster bombs and submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles against the three Iranian facilities located in central Iran.

During the 40-day imposed war that began in February this year, Iranian nuclear facilities were struck once again, including the Khondab nuclear reactor near Arak, in the most openly declared and illegal assault on IAEA-safeguarded nuclear infrastructure in modern history.

Never before had the declared, monitored and peaceful nuclear and scientific facilities of a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) been attacked so openly by nuclear-armed rogue entities, while IAEA cameras and seals installed at the sites documented the darkness descending over some of the world's most closely monitored facilities.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, who had issued a religious ruling against nuclear weapons, was martyred in the opening strikes of the 2026 war. Iran swiftly suspended its cooperation with the IAEA in July 2025 and has yet to fully resume it amid continued US war-mongering and the UN nuclear body’s unconstructive and political approach.

Following the international silence over the unprovoked and illegal war of aggression against Iran, and the failure to force Tehran into capitulation, the American and Israeli regimes are now openly discussing further strikes against Iranian facilities, with the name "Pickaxe Mountain" increasingly being mentioned as a potential target.

 The next target, and why bombing it will not matter

Pickaxe Mountain, also known as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, is a hard-granite ridge located approximately two kilometres south of Natanz, in Isfahan province.

Iran has spent years excavating an extensive tunnel complex beneath the ridge, assessed to extend roughly 100 metres underground, about 20 metres deeper than Fordow.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to strike the site. In October 2026, he publicly claimed that Washington was monitoring activity at Pickaxe Mountain and three other sites, telling reporters that he would not rule out another military campaign, perhaps “another little Epic Fury.”

Iran's response has been unequivocal: any attack on Pickaxe Mountain will be met with decisive and crushing retaliation. But there is a deeper problem with the entire premise of such a campaign, one that the architects of the previous two wars have never satisfactorily addressed.

A country's knowledge of uranium enrichment and centrifuge production cannot be destroyed by bombing. Even a successful strike on Pickaxe Mountain – a highly uncertain prospect given the depth of the facility and the surrounding granite – would do little to eliminate Iran's indigenous and impenetrable nuclear capabilities.

The most important components of those capabilities are its trained personnel, technical documentation and industrial know-how, all of which have become deeply institutionalized across the country.

Demonstrated Iranian capabilities

Iran’s warning rests not merely on rhetoric but on the military record of the two previous wars. In March 2026, following Israeli strikes on Iranian territory and nuclear facilities, Iranian ballistic missiles struck areas around Dimona and Arad in southern occupied territories.

Although the missiles were not intended to penetrate the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, they struck structures just a few kilometres from the reactor, delivering a clear warning.

In another demonstration of its reach, Iranian missiles struck the Bazan oil refinery in Haifa. The 2025 12-day war had already demonstrated a similar capability, when an Iranian missile strike caused extensive damage to Haifa's refinery and forced a suspension of operations.

What makes this development militarily significant is the failure of the extensive defensive architecture designed to prevent precisely such retaliatory attacks.

Israel's multilayered air-defence network, including Arrow-2 and Arrow-3, David's Sling, US-supplied THAAD batteries, Patriot systems and American Aegis-equipped warships in the Mediterranean, is integrated with ground- and space-based early-warning and tracking capabilities.

It is arguably the most sophisticated and expensive air-defence architecture ever deployed. Yet Iran managed to deliver precision-guided, solid-fuel ballistic missiles against sensitive locations inside the occupied territories using a relatively small number of projectiles.

The operational record of March 2026, including the refinery strike and the demonstration of missile reach near Dimona, answered a critical question: Tehran possesses the capability to penetrate Israeli defences and strike strategically sensitive locations.

So far, it has stopped short of directly striking the Dimona reactor itself. That restraint should be understood as a strategic choice, not evidence of an inability to reach the facility.

Why Dimona is not Fordow

The debate in Western capitals about Iran's vulnerability to bunker-buster bombs has a largely overlooked counterpart: Israel's own strategic vulnerabilities. Iran is a vast country, covering approximately 1.6 million square kilometres, with its peaceful and science-centric nuclear infrastructure dispersed across numerous locations, including Natanz, Fordow, Isfahan, Arak, the Bushehr coast and, more recently, Pickaxe Mountain.

These facilities are separated by hundreds of kilometres, making the country's nuclear infrastructure geographically dispersed and more difficult to disable through a concentrated and multi-layered military aggression.

Israeli-occupied territories are comparatively smaller in size and the regime’s nuclear infrastructure is considerably more concentrated. Its principal nuclear installation is located at the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, approximately 13 kilometres from the city of Dimona.

According to open-source analyses and statements by experts familiar with the site, the complex consists of multiple structures, known as Machon facilities, distributed across an area of approximately 36 square kilometres in the Negev. The installation is surrounded by extensive military infrastructure, including electrified fencing, patrol roads and air-defence systems.

In January 2026, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimated that Israel possessed approximately 90 nuclear warheads, alongside fissile-material stocks potentially sufficient to produce a considerably larger arsenal.

The reactor, constructed with French assistance and operational since the early 1960s, is a heavy-water, natural-uranium facility historically associated with the production of plutonium and tritium. Its role within Israel's nuclear program has long been a subject of open-source analysis and international scrutiny.

The strategic point is not that Iran would necessarily need to destroy the Dimona complex outright. Rather, the concentration and interdependence of Israel's nuclear infrastructure create vulnerabilities of a different kind from those confronting Iran.

Disruption to critical supporting infrastructure, industrial capabilities and associated facilities could have consequences extending well beyond the immediate damage, potentially affecting the continuity of Israel's nuclear program for years.

The reactor and its supporting infrastructure

The heavy-water reactor occupies a central place in the development of Israel's nuclear program. Its operation depends on a broader network of supporting infrastructure, industrial capabilities, maintenance systems and specialised facilities.

These functions are interconnected, meaning that the resilience of the overall installation depends not simply on the protection of the reactor itself but also on the continued functioning of the wider complex.

This distinction is important when comparing the strategic vulnerabilities of Iran and the Israeli regime. Nuclear infrastructure is not defined solely by the physical protection of a reactor or enrichment facility. It also encompasses the industrial, scientific and logistical systems that sustain a country's nuclear capabilities over time.

The reprocessing and components complex

This is the heart of the Israeli nuclear weapons program. The reprocessing plant extracts plutonium from Dimona’s waste, alongside the production of lithium deuteride and beryllium components for nuclear weapons.

The surface buildings around it are operationally significant as well.

Lithium and fuel-rod production

This is a largely surface-level plant producing raw lithium and lithium deuteride for the previous facility, and the natural-uranium fuel rods that feed the Dimona reactor.

Because so much of it is above ground, it is among the more exposed nodes on the site.

Water treatment and uranium recovery

This plant treats wastewater from the reprocessing complex and recovers uranium from it. Its loss indirectly degrades the reprocessing and components complex’s operation.

Other facilities in the Shimon Peres complex include aluminum cladding production for fuel rods, laser and gas-centrifuge enrichment, depleted-uranium metal production, and research-and-development functions.

Open-source analyses identify further high-value points among them whose loss would cascade across the whole complex.

The inherent weakness

The Dimona complex is not simply a reactor that can be switched off or rendered irrelevant by a single strike. It is an integrated nuclear installation encompassing multiple functions associated with spent-fuel storage, reprocessing and the handling of nuclear materials.

Israel's nuclear infrastructure is concentrated, interdependent and, in part, exposed above ground, while its supporting systems present vulnerabilities distinct from those of its more heavily protected core facilities.

This broader picture raises important questions about the resilience of Israel's nuclear infrastructure in the face of Iran's demonstrated missile capabilities, including its precision-guided, solid-fuel ballistic missiles and its ability to penetrate even highly sophisticated air-defence systems.

These vulnerabilities also undermine the escalation logic set in motion by the previous two imposed wars. A rogue entity that attacks a democratic, sovereign country's nuclear facilities risks inviting retaliation against its own strategic infrastructure.

But a strike on Dimona resulting in a significant radiological release would go far beyond a conventional act of military action, potentially creating consequences that extend widely.

This is precisely why the distinction between Iran's demonstrated capabilities and its actual choices matters. During the 40-day war, Iranian missiles struck areas near Dimona rather than the nuclear facility itself. They also struck a refinery and an area without directly attacking the reactor. Tehran thus demonstrated its reach while stopping short of hitting the reactor.

The game that was started, and who can end it

The sequence of events matters. The military aggression against Iran's safeguarded nuclear facilities was not initiated by Tehran. It began with unprovoked Israeli and American attacks on Natanz, Fordow, Isfahan and Arak in 2025 and 2026, accompanied by repeated declarations from Israeli and American leaders that the objective was to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear bomb.

Like the nuclear infrastructure of any other entity, Israel's facilities cannot be considered immune from military attack. Their geographical concentration raises additional questions about their strategic vulnerability. This is a description of the strategic environment that the previous two wars have helped create.

If the third war, now being discussed, proceeds against Pickaxe Mountain, Tehran will have further grounds to regard the precedent established by attacks on its own nuclear infrastructure as justification for expanding the scope of potential retaliation.

 It should be noted that all these facilities are situated in the Negev, far from any major population center and at a distance from the cities and settlements inside the occupied territories, so that, on this reading, no danger would be posed to the people, Palestinians or Israeli settlers.

On the other hand, the Dimona complex has never been placed under IAEA safeguards, Israel has refused to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the site’s military character has been concealed from international inspection for six decades. Responsibility for any release, on this account, would fall on the regime that secretly built an unsafeguarded weapons plant in the desert.