With speculation of an alleged U.S. plan to strike Iran with nuclear weapons circulating online, Iran has already begun preparing for worst-case scenarios. The latest buzz around such a U.S. escalation stems from a recent comment from conservative commentator Tucker Carlson. He claimed in an X post Sunday that President Donald Trump had been pressured by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into considering nuclear means to penetrate Iran's heavily fortified Pickaxe Mountain, beneath which the Islamic Republic was suspected to have resumed its enrichment program.
Trump has previously dismissed the idea of using nuclear weapons against Iran, and reiterated this position on Tuesday, telling Politico, "I don't need it." Israel, which is widely believed to possess its own nuclear arsenal, has not publicly discussed the use of this option against its main foe. Yet the U.S. administration's unpredictable approach to the conflict, coupled with the president's penchant for apocalyptic threats against the Islamic Republic, continue to stoke uncertainty surrounding the White House's limits as a clear victory remains elusive. And Iran, one of the few nations to have been attacked with weapons of mass destruction in recent decades, is nonetheless making contingency plans, as evidenced by recent guidelines broadcast to the general public via state media.
Meanwhile, analysts argue Tehran has options of its own in the event of such an otherwise unthinkable scenario, the fallout of which could ultimately extend to Washington as well. "If the U.S. were to launch a nuclear attack on Iran," Tehran-based security analyst Alireza Taghavinia told Newsweek, "Iran's response would upset the balance of power." Days before Carlson's prediction appeared on social media, the official Islamic Republic News Agency published an October 28 report featuring representatives of the Isfahan Red Crescent Society and emergency services offering recommendations on how to shelter and avoid radioactive contamination in the event of a nuclear attack. Pickaxe Mountain is located among the Karkas Mountains in Isfahan, about a mile south of the Natanz nuclear complex.
The IRNA article, packaged as part of the country's annual Passive Defense Week, was accompanied by a roughly eight-minute clip that specifically referred to the estimated impact of a 15-kiloton tactical nuclear device detonated underground. In Iran, defense against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats is handled by the National Organization of Passive Defense, a part of the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff led by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Gholemreza Jalali for more than 20 years. Taghavinia argued that Iran's efforts to maintain readiness against such forms of warfare date back at least to the bloody conflict fought with neighboring Iraq between 1980 and 1988.
Then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's forces made use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and civilians throughout the war. "First, all Iranian military institutions have units to counter chemical, microbial and radioactivity attacks," Taghavinia said. "And considering that Iran was repeatedly subject to chemical attacks during the eight-year war with Saddam, it has good experience in this field." A year after the Iran-Iraq War's end, then-President Ali Khamenei rose to the position of supreme leader upon the death of revolutionary founder Ruhollah Khomeini, instituting a fatwa, or Islamic ruling, in the 1990s against the development of weapons of mass destruction.
At the same time, Khamenei oversaw a massive expansion of Iran's nuclear program, including covert activities exposed in the early 2000s that prompted international suspicions toward the intent of the Islamic Republic's activities. And with Khamenei's death on the first day of the war launched by the U.S. and Israel in late February, debate over Tehran's nuclear stance has resurfaced and intensified. Previously, much of the discussions surrounding the potential amendment to Iran's nuclear stance had taken place in select circles of experts and officials.
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