Threats by the US and Israel against Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain facility have reached a fever pitch, with President Donald Trump claiming the site could be “dealt with” in minutes and Israeli regime officials reportedly pushing for extreme measures.

Yet the site sits beyond the reach of every weapon in the American and Israeli arsenals—and the political cost of any attack would be catastrophic for the aggressors.

On November 1, 2026, just days before American midterm elections, Trump told reporters that Washington still had "one or two sites" to deal with in Iran, explicitly naming Pickaxe Mountain.

"We can do it in ten minutes," he declared. "We can do all of this very quickly."

The statement echoed his July claim that the US would hit the area "pretty soon, and very heavily," adding that "there's not a thing they can do about it."

Netanyahu, who lost the Israeli elections, has reportedly been calling Trump almost daily to press for strikes, and Israeli media have described the pressure as continuing even as Qatar-mediated talks go nowhere.

Reports originating from Tucker Carlson’s November 1 social media post indicate that the decision window sits days after the midterms, which Trump's Republican Party lost decisively.

But the facility Trump has singled out is not a target that can be eliminated by firepower. It is a geological fortress, and the physics of the site render both conventional and nuclear options ineffective.

Geography of impunity

Pickaxe Mountain, known in Persian as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, sits approximately two kilometers south of the Natanz nuclear complex in Isfahan Province, about 250 kilometers south of Tehran.

Its summit reaches approximately 1,608 meters above sea level. The mountain's name derives from its distinctive shape, but its true significance lies in what lies beneath.

Satellite imagery shows two pairs of tunnel entrances carved into the eastern and western sides of the ridge. The western entrance is roughly 100 meters below the highest part of the ridge; the eastern entrance is approximately 150 meters below it.

The facility is estimated to lie at least 80 to 100 meters below the surface, buried not in ordinary rock but in dense, hard formations.

The regional geology belongs to the Urumieh-Dokhtar Magmatic Arc, one of Iran's principal geological provinces, formed by the long history of convergence and subduction involving the Neo-Tethys Ocean and the subsequent collision between the Arabian and Eurasian continental plates.

The resulting environment is characterized by a varied assemblage of igneous rocks—volcanic rocks such as andesite, dacite and rhyolite, as well as intrusive rocks including diorite, granodiorite and granite—alongside sedimentary formations including limestone.

The mountain consists of andesite interlayered with limestone, though some media descriptions have speculated that it is predominantly granite.

Andesite is comparable to, and in some formations harder than, granite, with compressive strength values that can reach the high hundreds of megapascals, making it a formidable natural barrier.

Whatever the exact composition, the mountain's rock mass provides substantial natural protection. The facility has been excavated inside a mountain, using the surrounding rock as a natural protective structure rather than relying entirely on artificial defenses.

The choice of location is no accident; Iranian engineers are believed to have selected a site with the hardest possible rock composition, and it is likely that the facilities are buried much deeper than the entrance level, with the chambers also being exceptionally well-isolated against tremors.

Limits of conventional weapons

The most powerful conventional bunker-buster in the American arsenal is the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a weapon weighing approximately 13.6 tons.

According to public assessments, the GBU-57 can penetrate roughly 18 meters of concrete or 60 meters of earth under optimal conditions. Whether it can penetrate 100 meters of solid rock is a question that military experts answer with deep skepticism.

The comparison with Fordow is instructive. Fordow, Iran's most heavily fortified nuclear site before Pickaxe Mountain's emergence, was built deep inside a mountain.

According to official American reports, their B-2 bombers dropped multiple 30,000-pound bunker-busters on Fordow in June 2025.

The result, according to subsequent intelligence assessments, was that the entrance collapsed, but the underground infrastructure was not destroyed. Iran's centrifuges remained largely intact, and some of its enriched uranium stockpile had been moved before the strikes.

Pickaxe Mountain is deeper than Fordow. It is harder than Fordow. And it has not yet been struck. The GBU-57, the most capable conventional penetrator in existence, cannot reach it.

Nuclear delusion

If conventional weapons cannot reach the facility, some voices in the American and Israeli establishments have reportedly floated the nuclear option, which will have far greater repercussions for the aggressors.

Israeli media reporting and the physics of the site have described pressure from Netanyahu on the Trump administration to consider a tactical nuclear strike on Pickaxe Mountain in the days following the American midterms.

The technical reality is unforgiving. A tactical nuclear weapon is not a deep-penetrating weapon. The B61-11, the most capable nuclear earth-penetrator in the American arsenal, reaches only about 10 meters into solid rock.

Pickaxe Mountain's facilities sit at least 100 meters below the surface in solid rock. The device would not reach the target. It would, in the assessment of experts, "probably mostly bounce off the huge granite wall."

The MOAB, the largest conventional bomb in the American inventory, is similarly unsuited to this task. It creates a massive airburst pressure wave designed for caves and canyons, not deep mountain solid rock.

Its real value is the visible fireball it produces—a spectacle that "will look good on television" so that leaders can claim the nuclear program has been finished. Effectiveness is highly doubtful. The claim of success remains easy to broadcast.

The steep slopes of Pickaxe Mountain make even accurate delivery difficult. The physics of the site do not yield to politics. The mountain does not care about election calendars or demands from allied capitals.

Political impossibility

Even if the technical barriers could somehow be overcome, the political consequences of an attack on Pickaxe Mountain would be catastrophic for the aggressors.

Iran has made its position unmistakably clear. Major General Ali Abdollahi, chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, has warned that "the outbreak of any new war against Iran would inevitably spread its fire to engulf everyone."

The Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, Iran's operational military command, has stated that any attack on the site would be regarded as "an expansion of the war in the region," and that "all American interests, its allies and supporters" would consequently face Iranian strikes.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei has affirmed that Tehran would not leave any American military attack unanswered, responding with equal or greater force.

These are not idle threats. Iran has demonstrated over the past two years its determination and capacity to respond to military aggression.

The regional equation is clear: an attack on Iranian soil, particularly on a site of such strategic significance, would trigger a response that would engulf the entire region.

The presence of American military personnel and assets across the region, the vulnerability of Persian Gulf oil infrastructure, the strategic chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz, and the network of allied forces across the region all constitute vulnerabilities that Iran can exploit.

The political cost of an attack on Pickaxe Mountain would far exceed any conceivable military benefit—especially when the military benefit is zero.

What the site represents

Pickaxe Mountain is not merely a military target. It is a symbol of Iranian technical sovereignty and strategic patience. Iran has consistently stated that its nuclear program is peaceful and energy-centric.

The facility at Pickaxe Mountain was announced in September 2020 by Ali Akbar Salehi, then head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, as a replacement for the centrifuge assembly workshop damaged at Natanz in July 2020.

He described the proposed installation as more modern, larger and more comprehensive than the damaged workshop.

Construction began in the autumn of 2020, and satellite imagery has since documented the development of multiple tunnel entrances, access roads, supporting infrastructure and extensive areas containing excavated material.

The secrecy surrounding the site, and the depth of its construction, reflect a rational response to a history of foreign attacks on Iranian nuclear infrastructure.

Natanz was bombed, as were Fordow and Isfahan. Iran learned the lesson that any facility above ground or at shallow depth is vulnerable.

Pickaxe Mountain is the answer. It is a facility that cannot be destroyed from the air, cannot be reached by bunker-busters, and cannot be neutralized by tactical nuclear weapons. It is, in the most literal sense, an impossible target.

The American and Israeli threats against the site are therefore a political performance. Trump's claim that the United States can "do it in ten minutes" is not a statement about military capability, but a rhetoric of a war-monger who is not in control of things, both at home and abroad.