President Donald Trump has made clear he has no intention of using a nuclear weapon against Iran, but his repeated warnings about one deeply buried target are raising a difficult question: can conventional firepower alone finish the job?
Speaking at the GOP midterm convention on Wednesday, Trump issued a blunt warning to Tehran over Pickaxe Mountain, a site believed to house Iranian nuclear materials. “We noticed there’s a little activity at Pickaxe. I would advise Iran not to get cute,” Trump said, according to video circulating online. “Because we will have to hit them very hard, we have no choice.”
The problem, according to experts who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation, is that Pickaxe Mountain may simply be too deep for America’s most powerful conventional bunker-buster to crack. The facility sits under thick granite, with its underground complex estimated at roughly 328 feet below the surface, according to the Institute for Science and International Security, though the exact depth and layout remain unclear.
The U.S. military’s top bunker-busting weapon, the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, can strike targets up to 200 feet underground before detonating, per the Air Force. That leaves a gap experts say conventional weapons may not close.
Gary Samore of Brandeis University’s Crown Center for Middle East Studies said the MOP would likely need a vulnerable entry point, such as a ventilation shaft, to be effective, similar to how the weapon was used against Iran’s Fordow facility in June 2025. Samore noted an earth-penetrating nuclear warhead could destroy the site, but called an actual nuclear strike by Trump “extremely unlikely.”
Trump has said as much himself. Pressed by reporters in the Oval Office on Aug. 31 about whether he’d consider a nuclear strike, Trump dismissed the idea outright. “What a stupid question that is, actually,” he said. “Here they are, they’re totally defeated militarily. So now I defeat them, and now I should use a nuclear weapon on top of them?” He cut the press conference short shortly after.
The renewed attention on Pickaxe Mountain marks a shift from last year’s messaging, when the White House declared Iran’s nuclear facilities “obliterated” following the June 2025 strikes, a claim echoed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Analysts warn that even a successful strike wouldn’t end the threat for good. John Erath of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation said Iran would retain the knowledge to rebuild, potentially burying a future facility even deeper. He argued the administration needs to pair military pressure with real diplomacy.
The war with Iran, now more than six months old since strikes began Feb. 28, remains unresolved despite a June memorandum of understanding that left key enrichment questions on the table. Trump said Wednesday he expects the conflict to end “immediately after the election.”
A Department of War official declined to discuss “future or hypothetical movements,” saying only that “all options remain on the table.” Trump himself confirmed in an Aug. 25 Truth Social post that the U.S. is monitoring the site closely via Space Force, alongside the three nuclear facilities already struck.
