How Do You Negotiate Hormuz and Neutralize Pickaxe Mountain at the Same Time?

It cannot be done. Not this way, not that way, not some clever third way nobody has thought of . Not with more time. Not with more money. Not with a better negotiator in the room. Not in this life, not in the next, and if it existed, not in an alternate universe. There is no version of this that works.

The arithmetic is brutal. For the American position to hold, two mutually exclusive realities must coexist. First, the strait must reopen, meaning the naval blockade ends, the oil waiver returns, and Washington stops threatening airstrikes. Second, the Pickaxe mountain must be neutralized; the very same mountain that Trump himself promised to “take out” in a radio interview just weeks ago.

But true neutralization requires smashing the regime’s military apparatus until it is forced to completely abandon both its nuclear program and its grip on the strait. You cannot stretch one policy instrument across two opposing goals.

If the United States caves on Hormuz, it inevitably caves on the reason the war started in the first place: the principle that Iran can never possess nuclear weapons. This implies leaving Pickaxe mountain exactly as it is, surrendering to a fait accompli. In mathematics, this is an inconsistent system: it has no solution at all.

Details emerging from the Muscat talks show that the proposed framework asks Iran to use its “best efforts” to ensure the safe passage of commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the same waterway Iran heavily restricted and at times declared closed during the conflict. It’s essentially a grace period on an illegal toll.

Deeper in the rumored concessions lies a commitment to rustle up billions for reconstruction, spearheaded by the exact same government responsible for the destruction, according to Tehran. Astonishingly, no one pushing this deal seems embarrassed by any of it.

The core issue is leverage. American influence in this conflict boils down to a blockade and a threat, both of which have already been consumed entirely by the fight over the strait. There is no backup blockade hidden in a drawer for the mountain. Once the United States withdraws its carriers and demobilizes its fleet, it is neither practical nor realistic to re-mobilize that entire military deployment to return to the same loop.

The credibility of the threat is lost, and Tehran knows it.

Then there is the reality nobody wants to say out loud: accepting an agreement between Iran and Oman to control the passage of the strait doesn’t just leave the Pickaxe problem as it is; it empowers it. As Iran receives greater dividends from the fees imposed on vessels, a Pickaxe mountain left intact becomes a potentially indestructible future incubator for nuclear weapons.

On the other hand, the day Trump changes his mind in the future and decides to attack Pickaxe mountain, Iran will lock down Hormuz before dinner. Trump would spend his evening watching his pyrrhic diplomatic victory evaporate.

The conclusion is inescapable: if it is not neutralized now, it never will be. Only eight ships crossed the strait on a given day this week, compared to roughly a hundred and thirty before the war.

That massive gap is the totality of Iranian leverage. The draft in Muscat quietly hands the kill switch back to Tehran. This is unprecedented in the history of modern geopolitics: it would mean that Trump’s supposed victory of low gasoline prices in November would vanish if Iran decides to close the strait again for any other reason, or if it simply feels like controlling who governs in the White House and who does not in the future. A president complacent with Iran would be equivalent to an open strait; a president resistant to Iran’s demands would be equivalent to a closed strait.

But suppose Trump is only thinking in the short term. Oil prices drop, shipping insurance plummets, and the war officially ends on paper. Iran keeps a mountain the IAEA has never set foot in, while the rest of the world waits to discover what was actually buried down there. The Americans retreat from the region. Tehran declares victory, and frankly, who could argue otherwise? Donald Trump parades cheap gasoline into the midterms, daring anyone to complain.

Yet complain they will. Hardliners in his own party will point out that the war bought absolutely nothing: the uranium and the regime remain exactly where they were. Meanwhile, the opposition will smell blood in the water and kick him while he’s down, accusing him of starting a fire only to lose the fight.

Both narratives are already half-written by pundits waiting for the perfect moment. These aren’t voters he can win back. He might scrape together some undecideds who only care about gasoline prices and have never even heard of Isfahan; that counts for something politically, but no one should mistake it for a coherent geopolitical plan.

Therefore, lower gasoline prices do not guarantee Donald Trump a victory in the midterms either; the Democrats will kick him while he’s down and take full political advantage of this American capitulation.

This is where the entire scenario implodes. The comforting narrative suggests that Iran, having gotten what it wants, will have no excuse to close the strait again. But excuses were never the limiting factor; capability was. An agreement over shipping lanes doesn’t remove a single mine, fast boat, or anti-ship missile from the Iranian coast. The strait remains open only as long as nobody touches the mountain. And someone, eventually, is going to touch that mountain.

When they do, they will collide with a final, brutal reality: there is no such thing as a surgical strike on Pickaxe. Neutralizing the mountain requires neutralizing the regime militarily. There is no scenario where the centrifuges are destroyed but the rest of the country’s armed apparatus is left intact to burn the Gulf. Taking out the nuclear site means finishing the military job across all of Iran.

The equation posed in this article is, therefore, impossible. Trump must decide between capitulating and ceding the strait without dealing with Pickaxe mountain and the Iranian regime once and for all in exchange for a few extra votes and a seemingly more stable economy; or ripping the problem out by the roots, even if he has no idea how deep those roots go.

Perhaps he has already decided. Perhaps he is just waiting for Oman and Iran to communicate the details of the agreement. Or perhaps, knowing Trump, he won’t wait for the announcement.