President Trump’s best option to stop Iran from rebooting its nuclear weapons program is to take out the entrances to Pickaxe Mountain, where Iran’s busy nuke activities can be seen from above, says a nuclear expert who’s been eyeing the site.
“One set of tunnels is hardened and filled with dirt and rock. The other is still open – we see some trucks ongoing construction vehicles coming in and out,” Iran nuclear expert Andrea Stricker told The Post as the world prepared for another furious round of US military strikes, with the underground site in President Trump’s sights.
Whether another round of strikes happens remains to be seen. Iran says it’s in the final stages of a deal with and Oman to partially ensure travel through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump has threatened Iran with “decapitation” if it doesn’t make a deal, and has said the US still has “massive” amounts of munitions at its disposal despite leaks to the contrary.
Bunker-buster bombs might not be able to penetrate up to 450 feet down, after The Post and Wall Street Journal reported Israel claimed to have intelligence of Iran moving centrifuges into the secret mountain fortress.
A “boots on the ground” operation to seize the material is risky – although it does offer a way to place explosives in an optimal location deep underground.
Getting to the bottom is like descending a 38-story condo building. “Who knows how far down you’d have to go,” Stricker, who directs the nonproliferation program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said.
That leaves the air strike option as among the best bets.
“They could try the bunker busters (munitions). They could try exploiting ventilation shafts which are visible at Pickaxe They may be less effective because they’re trying to plummet through 300 to 450 feet of granite,” she noted.
“If they’re not effective, you could be left with the options of simply destroying the tunnel entrances with precision munitions.” That could at least deny access to anyone who might seek to go down, and allow for further monitoring from the sky.
Trump predicted a new round of military strikes might succeed where others have failed. “They’ll get weaker. They’ll get a little stronger, maybe, but they’ll get weaker, and then they peter out,” he said at a meeting with his cabinet at Camp David. “We’ll be hitting them very hard. “At some point they’re going to say we just can’t take it anymore.”
And he is primed to hit new targets after repeated strikes and counter strikes, including an attack on a Bermuda-flagged tanker carrying liquified natural gas through the Strait of Hormuz overnight Saturday. Iran has yet to take credit for the attack.
The president teased his intentions in an interview with talk host Hugh Hewitt last month. “We have eyes on it and Pickaxe Mountain is a possible target for a nice big fat shot right in the front door…We’re watching Pickaxe Mountain very closely. We don’t see any activity there.”
Trump finished the interview with a more definitive statement: “We’re going to take out Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to be ready.”
“We’re hitting that area pretty soon, and very heavily,” he said July 21. “I know exactly what’s going on at Pickaxe. It’s not a big problem – we took out their nuclear sites, and we’ll have to take out Pickaxe if we don’t make a deal,” he said July 28.
“It remains unclear when Pickaxe Mountain could be operational, based only on assessments of satellite imagery,” according to an analysis last month by the Institute for Science and International Security, authored by David Albright.
“It is also unclear if Iran still plans on installing a large-scale assembly facility, given the destruction of Iran’s centrifuge program, including Iran’s ability to make centrifuge components needed for an assembly plant. Nonetheless, if Iran starts to rebuild its centrifuge manufacturing capability, it could plan to install a smaller centrifuge assembly facility in Pickaxe Mountain able to serve a nuclear weapons program.
The good news for the Pentagon: repeated US and Israeli strikes have set back Tehran’s nuclear breakout clock to as much as 2.5 years, Stricker said.
