Pickaxe Mountain nuclear strike and Trump’s other Iran war options

The drums of war are once again sounding across the Middle East. Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News presenter and Maga whisperer, claimed on Monday that sources within the Trump administration, including Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, were considering a nuclear strike on Iran. “Under pressure from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Trump administration may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran,” he said in a social media post.

“The target would be Pickaxe Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence claims the Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program.” The claims from the journalist and provocateur have been widely derided, but analysts say there is no doubt that the US is planning, in co-operation with Israel, a third major wave of military strikes against Iran. On Monday night, Donald Trump did not shy away from the prospect of at least some form of strike on the underground nuclear facility.

“We might have to go after Pickaxe, but that’s not a big deal,” he told Fox News. “We can do it in literally one hour.” Then, the US launched new strikes on Iran , targeting Qeshm Island in what Pentagon officials indicated was part of a series of small-scale defensive strikes which did not signify a return to all-out conflict. Diplomacy is also in overdrive, with Qatar acting as the principal mediator between the US and Iran, and JD Vance, the US vice-president, leading the American side.

A peaceful solution therefore cannot be ruled out. However, if talks once again fail, a new shooting war is likely. These are Donald Trump’s main options, rated in terms of likelihood: 1/10: A US tactical nuclear strike on Pickaxe Mountain Mr Carlson, somewhat improbably, suggested a tactical nuclear strike on Pickaxe Mountain was being considered by the White House under “maximum pressure” from the Israeli prime minister. The idea, said Mr Carlson, without providing evidence, would be to use a nuclear weapon to destroy the site of Iran’s nuclear programme.

This, he argued, was the only weapon that could reach the underground fortress and destroy it because it was buried beneath up to 100m of hard granite. But the idea seems highly improbable for both practical and strategic reasons. Most nuclear bombs are air-burst weapons. Earth-penetrating weapons such as the US B61-13, an intermediate-yield nuclear bomb designed to target deeply buried military infrastructure, do exist but have never been tested, let alone used in anger.

Their effectiveness is based entirely on computer modelling. More important perhaps, Israel has a strict policy of “ambiguity” on nuclear weapons, never confirming or denying their existence in its arsenal. It is widely assumed to have a nuclear capability but holds it purely as a deterrent and a last resort. The country is also uniquely vulnerable. If it were seen to be involved in any way in breaking the taboo on the use of nuclear weapons, it could rebound horribly.

It would take only one strike on Israel to make it unliveable, given that it is such a tiny country. Experts said its generals were acutely aware that Russia, one of the world’s largest nuclear powers, is an ally and arms supplier to Iran and that Pakistan, a majority-Muslim country, is nuclear armed and has a defence pact with Saudi Arabia and Turkey. As Mr Carlson himself noted, the use of a nuclear bomb in the Middle East might tempt Russia to use one in Europe as part of its war on Ukraine.

That could quickly escalate to full-scale nuclear confrontation. Mr Trump is not an orthodox or cautious politician, but risking nuclear Armageddon is thought likely by most experts to be a step too far, even for him. Although Israel is highly unlikely to have pushed for their use in Iran, analysts said, it was possible that Benjamin Netanyahu inadvertently put the subject on the agenda. Last week, just days before the Israeli election, he published a much-criticised AI image of Tel Aviv being hit by a nuclear bomb in an effort to get his core vote out.

Mr Hegseth is a devotee of social media and – if Mr Carlson is correct – may have picked up the idea from there. 2/10: A full-scale invasion and regime change For Mr Netanyahu, a full-scale invasion of Iran that led to regime change would be the ideal outcome – the realisation of his life’s work. It would be supported by significant parts of the Israeli defence establishment and much of the Israeli population – and for good reason. Iran has made no secret of wanting to wipe Israel from the map and funds terrorist proxies that regularly attack the country.

But Israel’s interests are not wholly aligned with the US’s. The US sits thousands of miles from Iran and the threat it poses – while serious – is hardly existential. Conversely, the US, its citizens and most of its Nato allies have a major economic interest in seeing the war with Iran end and oil to start flowing again. Most analysts add that a military campaign to effect regime change in Iran would almost certainly require a large-scale land invasion, just as it did in Iraq.

Israel does not have the troop numbers or armour to do this, meaning the bulk of the substantial expense and risk involved in any such venture would fall to the US. There is little doubt that Mr Netanyahu will be lobbying for regime change. Indeed, the promise of the quick toppling of the Iranian regime is what many believe he sold to Mr Trump in the first place. The pressure on him is all the greater because he lost his majority in the Israeli elections last week and could very soon be out of office unless he can disrupt opposition plans to form a new government and take over.

In a phone call with Mr Trump over the weekend, Mr Netanyahu was said to have pushed to restart the campaign immediately after the US midterms on Wednesday. The call was described by aides as “tough” and “direct”, with Mr Trump saying he wanted to allow more time for negotiations with Iran to play out. A day earlier, speaking to reporters, Mr Trump said the negotiations with Iran were “going fine” but that the Islamic Republic was “not very reliable”.

“We still have to take care of, I would say, one or two sites, but we can do that in 10 minutes,” he said. “You probably could look at Pickaxe Mountain, and you have to take care of that.” Another blocker to a full-scale land invasion is time. It would take a minimum of six months to plan and get troops and armour in place by which time the new US election cycle will have started. And there is little chance that possible Republican presidential contenders, including Mr Vance and Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, would want to run on such a ticket. 5/10: A US-Israeli assault to free the Strait of Hormuz A military assault by the US and Israel to free the Strait of Hormuz was the crucial missing strategic element when the war started in February, experts said.

Israeli defence insiders cannot fathom why it was not included. They say it had been factored into US and Israeli planning through Centcom for years, with detailed plans drawn up for it. Some believe it was not factored in because time was too short. After the Iranian demonstrators took to the streets in January, Mr Trump was said to have been keen to act, sensing that the regime might topple. The Israeli military is said to have wanted more time, but Mr Netanyahu is thought to have calculated that a delay of several months would cause Mr Trump to lose interest and the “window of opportunity” to go to war with US support would be lost.

“From the minute that the Iranians decided that they would close Hormuz and they started bombing the sites of gas and oil in the Gulf states, [the war] was lost,” one senior Israeli-Iran analyst told The Telegraph in June. Perhaps now, the US and Israel will try to put that right. US generals may judge that an operation to free the shipping lane – albeit delayed – is still possible. If successful, it would not only free the world’s oil supplies but provide a means of throttling Iran economically.

But taking the strait would not be easy or cheap. It too would require troops on the ground – soldiers that would have to dig in and hold their positions, perhaps for years. It would also see Iran attack oil facilities and other infrastructure across the region, meaning there could ultimately be very little oil to ship. On Saturday, Mojtaba Khamenei , Iran’s supreme leader, warned of a war “without geographical limitation” if it were attacked again.

It would be the Islamic Republic and the Iranian nation who would “determine the time and the conditions of [the war’s] end,” he added. Khamenei also ordered his top generals to update their “target bank” in order that “all the material and immaterial assets of the American-Zionist enemy” fall within range. His security chief, Maj Gen Mohsen Rezaei, added: “We have something that, if America makes a move, will break its horns.” Given these threats to escalate the war across the region and the widely reported shortage of missile interceptors in the US arsenal, it is easy to see why Mr Trump may prefer a negotiated opening of the strait rather than a forced one.

US allies across the Gulf and in Europe are reliably reported to be of a similar mind. 7/10: Another US-Israeli ‘Mowing of the Lawn’ The US and Israel may instead opt for a more limited air campaign designed to remove known Iranian military infrastructure such as defence radars and missile sites to keep the Iranian threat in check. This strategy of “mowing the lawn” has been central to Israeli military thinking for a decade or more. It has also, to some extent, been happening on and off for the last few months anyway.

Since large-scale action stopped in June with the signing of an imperfect ceasefire, there have been dozens of US strikes on Iran, largely targeting military infrastructure. The US may calculate that a new burst of this type of activity could pressure Iran to the negotiating table. It would also have the advantage of degrading the country’s military capabilities were it later concluded that a major attack was needed. The main issue here is the risk of Iranian regional escalation and, again, the shortage of interceptors.

If Israel were to join with such strikes – and they have been kept out of it since June – Iran would almost certainly start attacking Israel with drones and ballistic missiles again. It is also likely that Iran would target US bases and ships across the region. In short, a mowing the lawn policy may prompt Iran to respond with a scorched earth policy. 8/10: A negotiated peace deal The framework for a deal to end the war has been on the table for months, and a version of it was even signed by Mr Trump in June.

The deal frees up traffic through the Strait of Hormuz in return for the US easing sanctions and releasing frozen funds. Both sides would also agree to talks on Iran’s nuclear programme aimed at preventing it from enriching uranium and developing a nuclear bomb. The problem is largely one of optics. The last time the deal was signed the world view – greatly magnified on social media – was that Mr Trump had lost the war. Iran had gained “administrative” control of the strait and the regime had not been toppled.

Mr Trump was a “loser”, said his critics, and he didn’t like that. Mr Vance has once again been put in charge of negotiating a deal – one that can hopefully be presented in a way that humiliates neither