Experts Warn: Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain Nuclear Bunker Defies Air Strikes, May Force Ground Action
National security analysts and nonproliferation experts are raising alarms over Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain facility, a deeply buried underground complex near Natanz carved into solid granite.
Satellite imagery reviewed by the Institute for Science and International Security shows ongoing fortification of tunnel entrances and heavy construction activity since late 2025.
This site, buried an estimated 80 to 100 meters deep, appears designed to withstand even America’s most advanced bunker-busters like the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator.
Intelligence assessments indicate the regime may have relocated a significant portion of its remaining highly enriched uranium stockpile—potentially around 400 kilograms at near-weapons-grade levels—to this hardened location.
Experts note that previous U.S. and Israeli strikes in 2025 severely damaged Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan, but left Pickaxe Mountain untouched and accelerating in development.
The granite overburden provides natural protection far exceeding shallower sites, rendering conventional airstrikes insufficient to neutralize the threat.
Prominent voices in defense circles argue that air power alone cannot eliminate this final nuclear redoubt.
Reports from think tanks like the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and analyses in outlets such as the Jerusalem Post highlight the possibility that only ground operations—special forces raids or commando insertions—could secure or destroy the enriched material and disable the facility. With Iran’s Revolutionary Guard weakened by ongoing operations, some specialists see a window for decisive action to prevent breakout capability.
This development underscores the failures of past policies that allowed Iran’s program to advance unchecked. Under previous administrations, diplomatic concessions and limited responses emboldened Tehran to dig deeper and hide its ambitions. Strong leadership now recognizes that half-measures only prolong the danger, while resolute force through strength offers the path to ending the regime’s nuclear pursuit once and for all.
As the situation escalates, experts stress the urgency: Pickaxe Mountain represents Iran’s last major gamble to preserve its nuclear hedge. Neutralizing it fully may demand the kind of bold, boots-on-the-ground resolve that weaker approaches avoided. America has the capability and the will under current direction to finish the job and remove this shadow over global security.