The question of whether the US can destroy the Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facility will partly be an intelligence race of who can outwit whom, matching offensive and defensive capabilities.
Reports on Friday that the United States was ordering an additional round of 30,000-pound (13,600-kilogram) mega bunker buster bombs, known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), on an emergent basis raised the issue anew of whether the American military possesses the capability to end Iran’s nuclear program, should it decide to attack. There are at least two avenues from which to analyze the question. One is the fact that Washington is ordering new mega bunker buster bombs for the first time in years without carrying out a standard competitive bidding process.
The second is multiple differences between the defensive situation at Pickaxe Mountain, the largest remaining Iranian nuclear facility, which lies underneath a mountain, versus that at Fordow, the Islamic Republic’s key nuclear facility under a different mountain, which the US bombed with 12 MOPs in June 2025. Regarding the US military ordering new bunker busters, there are positive and negative points.
The positive points are that the US did not issue such orders immediately after June 2025 and that the orders are for these same bombs, and not for some new larger bomb that has yet to be developed. Had the American military ordered additional such bombs immediately after June 2025, this could have been a concern that there were not enough even for one more similar operation – such as what might be necessary against Tehran now. (Read More)
