Trump says US could strike Pickaxe Mountain 'very soon'

US President Donald Trump said Friday that Washington could strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain site “very soon,” downplaying the ongoing confrontation with Tehran as “small potatoes” while defending intermittent American military operations against Iranian radar and defense systems.

Terminology and tactics

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he preferred to describe the confrontation as a “military conflict” rather than an outright war, rejecting the characterization of the hostilities as a full-scale war. “A lot of people don’t call it a war. I call it a military conflict because it’s small potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing,” he said.

Intermittent strikes

He added that the US has been conducting “intermittent strikes” and claimed there had been no active fighting for several days before a recent attack targeted Iranian radar systems. The president stated that American forces had destroyed Iranian radar, aircraft and other systems protecting the strategic Strait of Hormuz — a vital chokepoint for global energy shipments — and said minesweepers had cleared mines from the waterway.

Conflict assessment

“We’re not fighting right now. There’s no fighting,” Trump said, noting that the US was controlling traffic through the strait while degrading Tehran’s military capabilities. The president stated that Washington knows “everybody that’s moving at Pickaxe” and across Iran, saying, “We may hit Pickaxe very soon.” Asked when the confrontation would end, Trump declined to provide a timeframe.

Nuclear objectives

Trump asserted that Washington had already achieved its main objective by preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, arguing that the intervention had protected Israel and the wider Middle East. “They’re not going to have a nuclear weapon. That’s what we did,” he said. “Iran will not have a nuclear weapon because if they did, you probably wouldn’t be standing here very long.” He added that even if the US withdrew immediately, “it would take them 25 years to rebuild their country.”