U.S. forces took out military targets on Iran’s Kharg
Island, but left in place its oil infrastructure, President Donald Trump said
on March 13.
The assault came 14 days into Operation Epic Fury, marking
the first time the island—Tehran’s most vital economic asset—has been targeted
in the U.S.-Israeli campaign.
The eight-square-mile island 16 miles from Iran’s Persian
Gulf coast is where 90 percent of the oil it exports is pumped from terminals
into supertankers—up to 10 at a time—300 miles north of the Hormuz Strait. Most
is shipped to Asia, with China the biggest destination.
Trump warned that should Iran continue to threaten shipping
in the Strait of Hormuz, he would “immediately reconsider” his decision not to
bomb the island’s oil assets.
“The United States Central Command executed one of the most
powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally
obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island,” Trump
said in a March 13 Truth Social post.
“I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the
Island. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the
Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately
reconsider this decision.”
Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Stu Cvrk, an Epoch Times
contributor, said he believed Kharg had been “deliberately spared ... to limit
escalation.”
“A U.S. strategic objective is to create the conditions for
a ‘counterrevolution’ in Iran—one that would oust the current leadership
clique, as well as their supporting security and intelligence infrastructure,”
he told The Epoch Times.
“That means not providing any reasons the regime could use
to convince the Iranian people to rally around it. Taking out Kharg would do
exactly that because that would set their ability to export oil back for
months, for years.”
It would also send global oil prices skyrocketing, he said.
Venezuela Model
Anders Corr, publisher at the Journal of Political Risk,
principal at Corr Analytics, and an Epoch Times contributor, is among analysts
who say the island’s oil infrastructure must be destroyed or occupied by U.S.
forces.
“It is wrong to leave it in the hands of a terrorist regime
in Iran,” he told The Epoch Times, suggesting a scenario similar to the U.S.
seizure of Venezuela’s oil assets after capturing leader Nicolás Maduro in a
Jan. 3 raid.
American companies, most notably Chevron, developed
Venezuela’s oil industry before it was nationalized when socialists seized
power in the 1990s.
U.S.-based Amoco built and operated Kharg Island’s first oil
terminals in 1958. After its 1979 revolution, Iran seized Amoco’s property on
the island.
“Revenues from the export, or U.S. tax of the exports, could
pay back the many victims of the regime, including those in Iran, Israel, and
U.S. service members,” Corr said.
“It could help pay for the U.S. and allied military
operations to free Iran, and it could pay for Iranian civil society groups that
will hopefully democratize Iran.”
‘Forbidden Island’
Analysts noted the risks in any possible action to seize the
island’s oil infrastructure.
“If I were advising President Trump, I would restrain from
executing any military operation against Kharg Island and use the possibility
of an American attack as a bargaining chip instead,” said Brent M. Eastwood, a
defense expert, author, and former U.S. Army infantry officer who serves as
defense and national security editor for 19FortyFive.
“A potential U.S. action against the island is already a
threat that Iran is taking seriously ... so better to keep this as a potential
card to play and an item of leverage to be used during cease-fire and peace
talks.”
An assault to seize the island would likely be initiated by
Navy SEALs or Army special forces, such as Delta Force, followed by occupation
by Army airborne troops or Marines.
“This is tailor-made for a group of SEAL Team Six operators
to be infiltrated by submarine or an airborne parachute operation with a HALO
[High Altitude, Low Opening] jump, probably both at once,” Eastwood said.
Once shock troops seized the island, “I would concurrently
send a battalion or two of Marines with an amphibious operation to hold the
island for as long as possible,” he said.
Christian Milord, a U.S. Coast Guard veteran and Epoch Times
contributor, agreed: “I think it might be pretty difficult to seize it.”
The waters around the island are likely mined and would need
to be cleared under fire, and while “force protection” by U.S. Navy warships
would be stout, he said those ships themselves would be targets in confined
waters.
“They’ve gotten most of the missiles and drones that you can
see, but they still need to get the drones and the rockets that are in
stockpiles underground,” including, likely, on the island itself, Milord said.
“So it’s not an easy thing to seize Kharg Island,” he said.
“Somehow you got to seize it, not wreck it. Exactly how they do that, if we
were to try to do that, it would be the ultimate sensitive operation.”
The island’s sparse scrubland offers little cover outside
seaside settlements that house up to 20,000 workers. It was referred to as
“Forbidden Island” because of a large IRGC presence that analysts said included
Silkworm anti-ship missiles, Eisenhower-era Raytheon MIM-23 surface-to-air
missiles, and Soviet-made SA-5 air-defense missile sites.
It is less than 35 miles from large Iranian bases in
Bushehr, although they’ve been savagely targeted by U.S. and Israeli strikes.
The Pentagon in early March abruptly canceled major training
exercises for the 82nd Airborne, fueling speculation about a Middle East
deployment. An Army infantry brigade, the 10th Mountain Division, was already
scheduled to relieve the Iowa National Guard in the region this spring.
While there are no Marine expeditionary forces near Kharg
Island, the USS Tripoli and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit with about 2,400
Marines was reported Friday to have left Okinawa headed for the Arabian
Sea.
Meanwhile, the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima is
stationed in the Caribbean as part of Operation Southern Spear.
Once a larger ground force secured the island, Eastwood
said, troops would likely be targeted by shore-based Iranian missiles, drones,
and artillery, but “this would be less of a risk due to American and Israeli
air superiority and air cover there.”
Corr, calling seizure a “justified” capture of Iran’s “oil
export chokepoint,” agreed.
“The risk-reward ratio is minimal, and the island would be
relatively easy for the U.S. military to defend,” he said.