Tucker Carlson has raised eyebrows with his assertion that Trump might order a nuclear strike on Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain site
At least according to Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News host and penitent Trump loyalist, who says the U.S President may be hours away from ordering a nuclear strike on Iran under pressure from Benjamin Netanyahu. The target, according to Carlson, is Pickaxe Mountain, a heavily fortified underground complex near Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility. TOI Correspondent From Washington: Somewhere in Washington DC, the nuclear clock is apparently ticking.
“Bibi (Netanyahu) calls Trump about it every day,” Carlson quoted an “informed observer” as saying in a lengthy post on X, claiming that the Israeli PM is “cornered and desperate” after last week’s election results, and he can’t form a government unless Trump helps him. “The only military option is a nuclear strike,” Carlson wrote, alleging that the Trump administration has quietly rewritten the U.S nuclear doctrine since February to make battlefield nuclear weapons easier to use. ” He also said there was no intelligence indicating that Iran was about to abandon its policy against developing nuclear weapons. The nickname “Qatarlson”, popularised by his critics, including Laura Loomer and other pro-Israel conservatives, suggests that his criticism of Israel reflects Qatari influence rather than independent conviction.
Carlson has been sounding variations of this alarm for months, suggesting that even Armageddon has trouble keeping appointments. The latest post was greeted with ridicule in serious policy circles despite the adventurism of Trump and his MAGA cohorts. Indeed, there is a rather significant gap between the gravity of the claims and the evidence offered to substantiate it. Still, U.S hardliners have been raising the prospect of an imminent nuclear confrontation with Iran for months, repeatedly drumming up the bogey of Tehran acquiring nuclear weapons within weeks or months. Carlson’s own interview in March with former National Counterterrorism Center director Joe Kent was revealing. Asked whether Iran had been on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon, Kent replied: “No, they weren’t three weeks ago when this started, and they weren’t in June either. Carlson has argued that America should not subordinate its foreign policy to Israeli interests or be dragged into another Middle Eastern war. He has attacked Netanyahu’s influence in Washington, questioned the rationale for American military intervention and challenged the longstanding assumption among Republican conservatives that supporting Israel is an unquestionable article of faith.