Among the Iranian nuclear facilities the U.S. reportedly targeted in Sunday morning’s attack was the Pickaxe Mountain Facility. Iran has not acknowledged the site’s development or construction and it has retained a lower public profile, with the Institute for Science and International Security first discovering its existence in 2023. 

The facility, just south of the Natanz nuclear facility and buried roughly 330 feet below the mountain itself, was particularly concerning to experts due to its depth, which is between 30 to 70 feet deeper than Fordow. This is said to exceed the striking depth of the most powerful bunker-busting weapons in the U.S. arsenal.

Recent Iranian announcements stating the government planned to open a new facility heightened fears that Iran could take the site online in the near future, according to Andrea Stricker, the deputy director of the nonproliferation and biodefense program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“There’s concern that Iran was creating the floor space for another secret enrichment facility,” Stricker told Jewish Insider. “And so when the [International Atomic Energy Agency] Board of Governors passed a resolution finding Iran in non-compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty a couple of weeks ago, the Iranians threatened to build another or to open another enrichment facility, and people immediately feared that this would be the site of it.”

An additional concern over the potential opening of Pickaxe Mountain was that Iran had previously refused to give notice of new nuclear facilities, as required by agreements Iran had signed with the IAEA. According to Stricker, this meant that Iran might begin operations at the plant without notifying the international community, which may have been a factor in Israel’s decision to launch its current operation against Iranian nuclear and military facilities.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised President Donald Trump for his “bold decision” to strike three Iranian nuclear facilities located deep underground on Saturday.

Netanyahu made the comments in a video address posted shortly after Trump announced the completion of the operation targeting Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan, three nuclear sites that are deeply entrenched underground. 

“Your bold decision to target Iran’s nuclear facilities with the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history. In Operation Rising Lion, Israel has done truly amazing things, but in tonight’s action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, America has been truly unsurpassed. It has done what no other country on Earth could do. History will record that President Trump acted to deny the world’s most dangerous regime, the world’s most dangerous weapons,” Netanyahu said. 

The Israeli prime minister argued that Trump’s “leadership today has created a pivot of history that can help lead the Middle East and beyond to a future of prosperity and peace.”

“President Trump and I often say ‘peace through strength.’ First comes strength, then comes peace. And tonight, President Trump and the United States acted with a lot of strength. President Trump, I thank you, the people of Israel thank you, the forces of civilization thank you,” Netanyahu added.

Trump’s decision to carry out the strikes came just over a week after Israel began its military operation to destroy Iran’s nuclear program and before the end of the two-week period that the Trump administration had provided for a decision on potential strikes. The decision also came as analysts and lawmakers on Capitol Hill warned that Israel lacked the capacity to destroy deeply entrenched nuclear facilities and would need the U.S. to get involved.

The president said on Saturday that the U.S. dropped six bunker-busting bombs on Fordow and launched a total of 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles from U.S. submarines at Natanz and Esfahan. He said that all three facilities were destroyed completely.

President Donald Trump announced Saturday evening that the U.S. had carried out military strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites earlier Saturday.

“We have completed our very successful attack on three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,” Trump announced on Truth Social. “All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home.”

The three sites, particularly Fordow, are deeply entrenched underground, and analysts believe that Israel lacked the capacity to destroy the Fordow site on its own. Fox News host Sean Hannity said that Trump told him that the U.S. had dropped six bunker-busting bombs on Fordow and launched a total of 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles from U.S. submarines at Natanz and Esfahan. He said that all three facilities were destroyed completely.

The strikes come before the end of the two-week period that the Trump administration had provided for a decision on potential strikes. 

In brief remarks from the White House, Trump said that the strikes were a “spectacular military success” and that the sites had been “completely and totally obliterated.”

Trump threatened further military action if Iran does not agree to make peace, warning Tehran that there are many other targets the U.S. can still hit “in a matter of minutes.” 

“If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier,” Trump said. “This cannot continue. There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days.”

He also highlighted Iran’s four-decade history of attacks against U.S. personnel.

“I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu,” Trump continued. “We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we’ve gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel.”

Dana Stroul, the research director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East under the Biden administration, told Jewish Insider that the “failed talks in Europe on Friday likely convinced [Trump] that diplomacy, at least in the short term, was futile.”

“The threat of a conventional war with the United States is what Iran’s leaders presumably fear most,” Stroul said. “For the past week of Israel’s operations, the Iranians have only responded with ballistic missiles and drones aimed at Israel. The real risk now is that Iranian leadership expands the scope of their retaliation, including aiming missiles at the U.S. and its partners, militia attacks on US forces, and potentially the targeting of energy infrastructure throughout the Middle East.”

She said that the “most pressing strategic question is whether US strikes make negotiations with the Iranian regime more or less likely, and whether Iran’s leaders are now more convinced of their need for a nuclear weapon or are finally willing to make concessions.”

Andrea Stricker, the deputy director of the nonproliferation and biodefense program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JI that further operations of some kind will likely be necessary to eliminate stockpiles of highly enriched uranium in tunnels at Esfahan.

She said that could entail more strikes, or a U.S. or Israeli commando operation to recover the nuclear material.

So far, the strikes are being supported by most congressional Republicans, while most Democrats are opposed, with many saying that the action was unconstitutional given that Congress did not authorize it.

“The regime in Iran, which has committed itself to bringing ‘death to America’ and wiping Israel off the map, has rejected all diplomatic pathways to peace. The mullahs’ misguided pursuit of nuclear weapons must be stopped,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said. “As we take action tonight to ensure a nuclear weapon remains out of reach for Iran, I stand with President Trump and pray for the American troops and personnel in harm’s way.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said the strikes “should serve as a clear reminder to our adversaries and allies that President Trump means what he says.”

“The President gave Iran’s leader every opportunity to make a deal, but Iran refused to commit to a nuclear disarmament agreement,” Johnson continued. “The President’s decisive action prevents the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, which chants “Death to America,” from obtaining the most lethal weapon on the planet. This is America First policy in action.”

Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said: ”This war is Israel’s war not our war, but Israel is one of our strongest allies and is disarming Iran for the good of the world,” adding that the strike would “put an end to [Iran’s] ambitions” of destroying Israel and killing all Jews and could only have been carried out by the United States.

“This is not the start of a forever war. There will not be American boots on the ground in Iran,” Risch added, pushing back on concerns that anti-interventionists on both sides of the aisle have raised about a potential strike. “This was a precise, limited strike, which was necessary and by all accounts was very successful. As President Trump has stated, now is the time for peace.”

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also praised Trump’s decision and said, “We now have very serious choices ahead to provide security for our citizens and our allies and stability for the middle-east.”

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), one of the most pro-Israel congressional Democrats, said “this was the correct move” by Trump and said he’s “grateful for and salute the finest military in the world.”

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), another outspoken Israel supporter, said, “The world can achieve peace in the Middle East, or it can accept a rogue nuclear weapons program—but it cannot have both.”

“The decisive destruction of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant prevents the dangerous spread of nuclear weapons in the world’s most combustible region,” Torres continued. “No one truly committed to nuclear nonproliferation should mourn the fall of Fordow.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who was championing legislation in the House aiming to block U.S. military action against Iran, condemned the strike as unconstitutional in a X post which was re-shared by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), another isolationist House Republican, similarly questioned the strike’s constitutionality.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who is leading the Senate version of Massie’s resolution, asserted that the American people are “overwhelmingly opposed” to the prospect of war with Iran and suggested that the strikes were not necessary to set back Iran’s nuclear program.

“What made Trump recklessly decide to rush and bomb today?” Kaine continued. “Horrible judgment. I will push for all Senators to vote on whether they are for this third idiotic Middle East war.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said Trump had “dramatically increased” the risk of war in the Middle East and endangered U.S. troops.

“President Trump misled the country about his intentions, failed to seek congressional authorization … and risks American entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East,” Jeffries said, adding that the administration must explain its decision to the country and brief Congress.

“Donald Trump shoulders complete and total responsibility for any adverse consequences that flow from his unilateral military action,” Jeffries continued.

Several House Democrats called for Congress to immediately return to Washington to vote on Massie’s resolution.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the strikes were a “clear violation of the Constitution” and that it is “impossible to know at this stage whether this operation accomplished its objectives.”

“We also don’t know if this will lead to further escalation in the region and attacks against our forces, events that could easily pull us even deeper into a war in the Middle East,” Himes said.

Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) called the strikes “an unambiguous impeachable offense.”

Senate Republicans are, at least publicly, showing some signs of division on the possibility of a U.S. strike to eliminate the deeply entrenched Iranian nuclear facility at Fordow, as the Trump administration appears to be increasingly discussing the prospect.

President Donald Trump held a Situation Room meeting with his national security team on Tuesday after publicly suggesting that the U.S. might join Israel’s operations in Iran. Israel is believed to need U.S. assistance to destroy Fordow, and officials have said their operations will not end without hitting the site.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), asked by reporters about striking the nuclear site, reiterated what he told Jewish Insider a day prior. “How can you be successful without taking out Fordow?”

A senior Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss internal conference dynamics, estimated that a vast majority of the conference, around 90% of Senate Republicans, are at least privately united on the issue of the U.S. supporting Israel in bombing the Fordow facility if Israel needs such support. 

Other Senate Republicans with whom JI spoke on Tuesday did not fully echo that view.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said he’d want the U.S. to get involved directly in Israel’s campaign if the U.S. believes there is an imminent threat to the U.S., or if Israel is not able to fully destroy Iran’s nuclear program on its own.

“If we have intelligence saying that they were a true threat and that they’re going to go after us, then I want to be proactive not reactive,” Mullin said. “And if for some reason Israel can’t finish the job, President Trump has made this point very clear, in no way are we going to allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. So if for some reason the job can’t be finished, then that’s the time for us to have to go finish it.”

Experts largely believe that Fordow will be able to continue operating and Iran’s nuclear program will survive if the U.S. does not join Israel’s strikes on Iran.

Asked about striking Fordow, Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) said, “I think we need to make sure we force Iran to the table and that we’re strong,” adding that diplomacy should be “the primary effort and we do it through being strong.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said that Fordow needs to be eliminated but warned that a strike on the site would leave the nuclear materials there buried.

“I’m a little confused on all the conversation about dropping a bunker buster on a mountain that’s filled with enriched uranium, and how that solves the problem,” Lankford said. “If you’re going to try to get enriched uranium out of the country, dropping a big bunker buster on it may disable the centrifuges in [Fordow], but you still have 900 pounds of enriched uranium sitting there.”

He also said that the U.S. may not be able strike Iran before Iran attacks U.S. personnel, unless Trump can present to Congress and the American people evidence of a direct threat toward the United States, as was the case in the 2020 strike that killed Quds Force head Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Meanwhile, multiple Senate Democrats who spoke to JI on Tuesday said they haven’t yet made up their minds about two separate pieces of legislation, led by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), which aim to block U.S. involvement in Iran without direct congressional approval. None said affirmatively that they plan to join either effort.

Sanders’ bill was introduced with seven Democratic co-sponsors. Kaine’s resolution is likely to come up for a vote under special procedures in the coming weeks.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who led legislation in the House in 2020 to block U.S. attacks against Iran in the wake of the killing of Soleimani, said she hasn’t yet decided whether she’ll support the new legislation.

“We’re just looking at it pretty closely now,” Slotkin said, noting her past work on the issue.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said he needed to look at Kaine’s resolution more closely, but said that from his understanding, “it seems to articulate what is our constitutional responsibility, and in no way constrains the president from any legitimate exercise of war powers and foreign policy.”

Asked about striking Fordow, Blumenthal added that Israel “seems to be prevailing tactically, and I believe it has the right to defend itself against the existential menace of a nuclear armed [Iran],” which would also be “a threat to the entire world, including the United States.”

“I support our providing the means for Israel to defend itself against Iran’s retaliation,” he continued. “I’m concerned about U.S. personnel in the region, and I hope that a wider conflict can be avoided.”

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said she hasn’t yet had the opportunity to review the legislation.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said that he was planning to review the legislation on Tuesday evening.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), an isolationist-leaning Republican who supported a similar effort in 2020, said “you’ll know soon” if he’ll support the new legislation. He has argued that the administration would need congressional approval for operations against Iran barring an imminent threat.

An effort in the House led by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) that mirrors Kaine’s resolution to block U.S. military action against Iran without congressional authorization, on which the sponsors could force a vote, is picking up support from a group of progressive Democrats.

That resolution is co-sponsored by an expanding group of House progressives, including Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA), Don Beyer (D-VA), Greg Casar (D-TX), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Nydia Velázquez (D-NY), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Chuy Garcia (D-IL), Delia Ramirez (D-IL), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Summer Lee (D-PA), Jim McGovern (D-MA), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Mark Pocan (D-WI), Paul Tonko (D-NY), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), Becca Balint (D-VT) and Val Hoyle (D-OR).

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) cautioned on Tuesday that bombing Iran’s underground Fordow nuclear facility would leave significant enriched uranium buried underground.

“I’m a little confused on all the conversation about dropping a bunker buster on a mountain that’s filled with enriched uranium, and how that solves the problem. If you’re going to try to get enriched uranium out of the country, dropping a big bunker buster on it may disable the centrifuges in [Fordow], but you still have 900 pounds of enriched uranium sitting there,” Lankford told Jewish Insider. “And so to me, the most strategic thing we can do is find a way to get that enriched uranium out of there and also take out their capacity to do any more enrichment.”

He added that such an operation could be “[with Iran’s] consent [through a deal] or kinetic [military operations], one or the other.” Most experts believe that Israel lacks the ability to destroy the Fordow facility without U.S. assistance.

“They can’t have that level of enriched uranium sitting there in those centrifuges, all spinning, but just burying that uranium inside the mountain, I think, doesn’t solve the problem either,” Lankford continued.

Andrea Stricker, the deputy director of the nonproliferation and biodefense program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that the risk from nuclear materials remaining at Fordow after an Israeli or American strike would be minimal.

“If the Israelis target Fordow they would likely render it, for all practical purposes, inaccessible. The highly enriched uranium stocks could survive but would be very difficult for the Iranians to reach,” Stricker told JI. “The United States using the 30,000-pound massive ordnance penetrators would effectively destroy the material or entomb it inside. “

She added that there is “little concern about a major radiological incident in either case. Any radiation and chemical hazard would be minimal and localized to the facility, requiring people to wear protective gear.”

She compared the possibility to the Israeli strikes on above-ground facilities at Natanz, where the International Atomic Energy Agency reported no significant concerns about radiological contamination outside the site.

Asked about whether the U.S. should be pushing for regime change in Iran, Lankford said that “the best thing that could happen is regime change there,” but did not endorse the idea of using U.S. forces to achieve that goal. President Donald Trump suggested on Tuesday that the U.S. could kill Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah, Ali Khamenei.

“This is a regime that chants, over and over, ‘Death to America. Death to Jews.’ And they’ve actively worked towards assassinating President Trump, assassinating former members of our cabinet, working for the undermining of the United States government, attacking our warships through the Houthis off the coast of Yemen,” the Oklahoma Republican said. “We need to see regime change there because I’m not sure things get better for the Iranian people, or for the region, until there’s new leadership with a very different vision.”

He said that while the nuclear threat is the most pressing issue, it’s hard to see how the situation will improve, how the Iranian government can ever be trusted or how the Iranian people could have better lives under the Islamic Republic regime.

Lankford said that, under war powers limitations, the U.S. military may not be able to get involved until it is attacked directly or until the administration can provide evidence that Iran is planning a direct attack on the United States or U.S. personnel, as it did for the 2020 killing of Quds Force Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

The Oklahoma senator said in a CNN interview that the U.S. should not “rush into a war” but added that “when we are attacked, when we are threatened, we can’t just sit back and pretend that’s not going to happen.”

“If 9/11 taught us anything, when people chant ‘Death to America’ thousands of miles away, that does have consequences, they can carry that out,” Lankford continued

He noted on CNN that there are also 700,000 Americans in Israel, and that what happens in the region will impact them. Lankford also said Iran is “dancing on a threshold there seeing how close they can get to attacking Americans without our response.”

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Lankford expressed support for the continued provision of U.S. aid to Israel to defend itself and carry on its military operations, and criticized colleagues who he said had not argued that additional congressional authorization was needed in order to provide U.S. support for Ukraine but are now taking a different approach to Israel.

“There seems to be a double standard among some of my colleagues that they strongly defend the rights of Ukraine to defend themselves, but hesitate on Israel,” Lankford said.

Some Senate Republicans argued Monday that the U.S. should join Israel’s strikes on Iran to help it destroy deeply entrenched nuclear sites such as the Fordow facility, contending that Israel lacks the capacity to do so on its own. Others, though, argued that Israel may have alternative plans to attack Fordow, while still others suggested that the U.S. should hold back and focus on diplomacy unless U.S. personnel are attacked directly.

The comments come amid increasing speculation that the U.S. could become involved in the Israeli campaign, following comments by President Donald Trump on Truth Social that “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” The Israeli government issued evacuation warnings for parts of the city earlier in the day. Trump also announced he would be leaving the G7 Summit in Canada early, though he wrote on Truth Social that the reason he was departing “certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire” between Israel and Iran and is “much bigger than that.”

Assessments have long held that bunker-busting bombs and larger bombers, neither of which Israel has, are needed to eliminate Fordow, though some analysts have speculated in recent days that Israel has been developing alternative strategies to strike that site.

“We have to. I think we have to help. I am going to be encouraging the president [to support Israel] because the greatest tragedy in the world would be if we left the Iranian regime in place with a nuclear easy startup. I’d hate to see Israel spending all those resources of people and dollars on getting the job 90% done,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told Jewish Insider.

“I just think it would be silly to not help. I mean, here we are at this point and then to just [not let Israel finish the job] because they didn’t have the bombs that we have or the airplanes that carry them. That action alone could probably take the regime out. Now, you could try to just force the regime off some other way, but I wouldn’t leave either one of those things, the regime or the nuclear program, undone,” Cramer continued. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told JI that how the U.S. approaches Israel and Iran “is the most important decision the president will make. For the future of the Mideast and the security of Israel and our country, I think we go all in.”

A Senate Republican who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the situation said that Israel is not capable of destroying Fordow and similar facilities without U.S. assistance, and said they and colleagues are working with the administration on ensuring that it is provided.

“Israel can’t finish the job without us, not completely. We’ll give them the bombs but we need to help as well,” one senior Senate Republican told JI of the necessity of U.S. military support for Israel’s operation to take out Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

The senator cited the need for bunker-buster bombs to impact facilities that are deep underground. Only the U.S. possesses both the bombs and the planes that are capable of carrying the 30,000-pound explosives. “We’re working on the president,” the senator told JI. 

White House spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer on Monday denied an Israeli report that the U.S. was already conducting strikes inside Iran, saying, “American forces are maintaining their defensive posture, and that has not changed. We will defend American interests.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) told JI he would leave the decision on intervening up to the president, but suggested Israel may have alternative plans to address Iran’s most hardened facilities. 

“We will stand with Israel,” Rounds said. “Israel has done a marvelous job of preplanning their approach. They knew full well that we were not interested in participating or getting involved in this at this stage of the game, so my suspicion is they have their own plans on how to address [Fordow].”

“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, it’s just simply gotten to that point. Israel is taking charge and I suspect they have a plan to finish the job,” he reiterated.

Asked about his takeaways from a Senate Intelligence Committee briefing on the issue earlier in the day, Rounds said it had “reaffirmed that Israel clearly had excellent plans and this is not a happenstance. This is a well-planned-out maneuver that had to be accomplished because, as I think most people realize, Iran was getting closer and closer to having enough equipment, supplies and so forth to actually create, in the very near future, a bomb, if they so desired to.”

“You can only go along with that so long before you realize you’re going to have to act, and this was the opportunity that they had,” Rounds added. 

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) said the U.S. should get involved directly if Iran attacks any U.S. personnel but said the U.S. should otherwise remain focused on pressing Iran back to the negotiating table.

“I applaud the president for trying to get to a negotiated agreement and perhaps Iran will come to the realization that that is their only way out of this, and that’s what we should be pursuing at this point,” Ricketts told JI.