Trump says US might hit Pickaxe Mountain in Iran ‘very soon’

US President Donald Trump said Friday that Washington could strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain site “very soon,” while describing the ongoing conflict with Tehran as “small potatoes” and saying the US is carrying out intermittent strikes.

Asked whether the confrontation should be considered a war, Trump said he preferred to call it a “military conflict.”

“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 told reporters in the Oval Office.

Trump said the US has been conducting “intermittent strikes” and claimed there had been no active fighting for several days before a recent US attack that targeted Iranian radar systems.

“We’re not fighting right now. There’s no fighting,” he said, adding that the US was controlling traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and striking Iranian military capabilities.

Trump claimed the US had destroyed Iranian radar, aircraft and other systems protecting the strategic waterway, and said minesweepers had cleared mines from the strait.

He also claimed the US had prevented Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, arguing that Washington’s intervention had protected Israel and the wider Middle East.

“They’re not going to have a nuclear weapon. That’s what we did,” Trump said. “Iran will not have a nuclear weapon because if they did, you probably wouldn’t be standing here very long.”

Trump said: “We may hit Pickaxe very soon,” adding that the US knows “everybody that’s moving at Pickaxe” and across Iran.

Asked when the conflict would end, Trump said he could not give a timeframe but argued Washington had already achieved its main objective.

“We’ve already won the big thing: there’s not going to be a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Trump added that even if the US withdrew immediately, “it would take them 25 years to rebuild their country.”