Everyone is suddenly talking about Pickaxe Mountain, the fortified underground site Trump now vows to hit "pretty soon."
Alex Christoforou of The Duran thinks that is exactly the point, and he keeps asking the question nobody else does: what does that mountain have to do with the Strait of Hormuz? Nothing.
And Hormuz is the entire war.
The wild part? He reads Pickaxe as theater, a sequel to last year's "Midnight Hammer."
Eleven nights of airstrikes in, the US is drifting away from Iran, not toward it, pushed back from the Gulf to Jordan to Israel, its missile stockpiles draining.
A dramatic strike on a mountain gives Trump a victory he can sell hard: we obliterated the nuclear threat, mission accomplished, time to pause.
Which means the pause is the real objective.
The moment markets hear Pickaxe fell, oil eases and stocks lift, buying Washington space to rearm, resupply, and lean on regional allies before round four.
His darker frame: this looks like a forever war by design, Hormuz the one lever Iran will never willingly drop.
@AXChristoforou
