{"id":17487,"date":"2026-07-26T05:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T00:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=17487"},"modified":"2026-07-26T05:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T00:30:14","slug":"trump-vows-u-s-will-soon-bomb-irans-pickaxe-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=17487","title":{"rendered":"Trump vows U.S. will soon bomb Iran&#039;s Pickaxe Mountain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/XOe-x-MjD_p585Z5_lztIeuMzms=\/0x0:4000x2250\/1366x768\/2026\/07\/21\/1784652235301.jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>President Trump said Tuesday that the U.S. military will <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/07\/15\/trump-situation-room-iran-bombing\" target=\"_blank\">bomb<\/a> Iran&#8217;s Pickaxe Mountain, a deep underground site that the U.S. and Israel suspect could be used for nuclear activity. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it matters:<\/strong> Trump&#8217;s remarks, at the top of his meeting with the president of Lebanon at the White House, signaled that he is not interested in a ceasefire at the moment and is moving towards escalating the strikes on Iran. <\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><strong>What he&#8217;s saying:<\/strong> &#8220;We&#8217;ll be hitting that area very probably pretty soon. There&#8217;s not a thing they can do about it. You know, normally I wouldn&#8217;t say that. If I thought they could do something about it, I would never say that. But we&#8217;ll be hitting that area pretty soon, and very heavily,&#8221; Trump said.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Trump said the U.S. thinks Iran &#8220;may have&#8221; stored centrifuges at the site but added, &#8220;We don&#8217;t have it on record.&#8221; Even if Iran did, &#8220;it doesn&#8217;t mean anything unless they have the [nuclear] material.&#8221; He said Iran does not.<\/li>\n<li>The Wall Street Journal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/world\/middle-east\/israel-believes-iran-moved-nuclear-centrifuges-into-pickaxe-mountain-d29d21c0?mod=hp_lead_pos2\" target=\"_blank\">reported<\/a> on Monday that Israel provided the U.S. with intelligence suggesting that Iran has moved thousands of centrifuges into Pickaxe Mountain. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Yes, but:<\/strong> It is not clear whether the U.S. military has bombs that can penetrate the rock above the deep underground facility. Nevertheless, a U.S. strike could do damage to the site and block its entrance tunnels.  <\/p>\n<p><strong>Driving the news:<\/strong> U.S. officials say <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/politics-policy\/donald-trump\" target=\"_self\">Trump<\/a> is nearing a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/07\/21\/iran-war-ceasefire-proposal-trump-troops\" target=\"_blank\">fork<\/a> in the Iran war, with two options he is considering.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Option 1: Pursue a new 10-day ceasefire aimed at reopening the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/07\/14\/trump-hormuz-toll-demand-trade-fee\" target=\"_self\">Strait of Hormuz<\/a>. Qatar, Egypt, Pakistan and other regional mediators are urging him to do so. <\/li>\n<li>Option 2: Launch a massive joint military campaign with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/world\/israel\" target=\"_self\">Israel<\/a> to try to force Tehran to capitulate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>State of play:<\/strong> Trump signaled on Tuesday he is leaning toward the second choice. He expressed no interest in restarting negotiations with Iran. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;They want to desperately meet, and until they&#8217;re ready to meet in a meaningful way, we have no interest,&#8221; he said. <\/li>\n<li>Trump stressed the U.S. is &#8220;not finished at all&#8221; with the war. Iran, he said, hasn&#8217;t &#8220;seen anything yet. We have been nice.&#8221; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Trump said Tuesday that the U.S. military will bomb Iran&#8217;s Pickaxe Mountain, a deep underground site that the U.S. and Israel suspect could be used for nuclear activity. Why it matters: Trump&#8217;s remarks, at the top of his meeting with the president of Lebanon at the White House, signaled that he is not interested&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/XOe-x-MjD_p585Z5_lztIeuMzms=\/0x0:4000x2250\/1366x768\/2026\/07\/21\/1784652235301.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}