Trump Eyes Iranian Target That Would Probably Take A Nuke To Totally Destroy

President Donald Trump has stated that he would never use a nuclear weapon in Iran, yet he has repeatedly threatened to strike a facility that may be impervious to conventional weapons.

Most recently, Trump threatened to attack Pickaxe Mountain in Iran during the GOP midterm convention on Wednesday. Pickaxe Mountain, one of the sites that houses Iran’s nuclear materials, is so deep that not even the most powerful conventional weapons in the U.S. military can penetrate its thick granite walls, multiple experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“We noticed there’s a little activity at Pickaxe [Mountain]. I would advise Iran not to get cute,” Trump said during the convention, according to a video posted on X. “Because we will have to hit them very hard, we have no choice.”

“My general sense is that conventional ordnance would be unlikely to decisively destroy such a deeply buried facility,” Philipp C. Bleek, fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism, told the DCNF. “However, no matter how much a facility is buried, it must come to the surface via access tunnels, air shafts, etc. So even the most deeply buried facility can be entombed if intelligence and precision allow those locations to be effectively attacked.”

The GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, commonly known as the MOP, is the most powerful conventional bunker-busting weapon in the U.S. arsenal and is designed to destroy deeply buried, hardened facilities, according to the U.S. Air Force.

The GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator can reach targets as far as 200 feet underground before detonating, according to the U.S. Air Force.

Pickaxe Mountain’s underground complex is estimated to sit at least 100 meters, or roughly 328 feet, beneath the mountain, according to the Institute for Science and International Security, which says the precise layout and depth of the facility remain uncertain.

“My impression is that the MOP is unlikely to penetrate into the tunnels under Pickaxe Mountain, unless there are vulnerable entry points like ventilation shafts, which the U.S. used to deliver the MOP into Fordow in June 2025. Of course, the MOP could be used to seal entrances and exits of the tunnels,” Gary Samore, a politics professor at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, told the DCNF. “I believe that an earth-penetrating nuclear warhead could destroy the underground site at Pickaxe Mountain, but … it is extremely unlikely that Trump will order a nuclear strike on Iran.”

Trump previously threatened to strike Pickaxe Mountain during a July 28 interview on Fox News.