Up Next: Pickaxe Mountain
Kevin McCullough
The easiest decision any president can make is the one he never has to make.
Hold another meeting. Send another envoy. Extend another deadline. Issue another carefully worded statement expressing “grave concern.” Washington has turned delay into a governing philosophy, and nowhere has that habit been more dangerous than with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Forty-seven years after the ayatollahs seized power, we’re still hearing the same promise: Just give diplomacy a little more time.
How much more?
President Donald Trump appears to have answered that question. Reports indicate he has approved plans to strike Iran’s deeply buried Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facility should Tehran continue refusing to abandon its march toward a nuclear weapon. If those reports are accurate, he’ll immediately be accused of escalating tensions.
Let’s be honest about something.
The tensions were escalated years ago.
They were escalated when Iran built covert nuclear sites beneath mountains instead of hospitals above them. They were escalated when American troops were targeted by Iranian-backed militias. They were escalated when Hamas and Hezbollah were armed and financed by a regime that has spent decades exporting revolution instead of building prosperity for its own people.
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https://townhall.com/columnists/kevinmccullough/2026/07/16/up-next-pickaxe-mountain-n2679577
