Iran’s enormous oil export terminal on Kharg Island is a tempting prize. Now, an enraged President Donald Trump is ready to take it for himself.
He can. He has the technology. He has the troops. But does he have a plan?
“The real issue is what happens afterwards,” argues University of Toronto professor of political science, Carla Norrlöf.
Former Trump Administration Pentagon Advisor Bilal Saab fears the President may soon find himself backed into a corner.
“One successful Iranian strike against the Marines that leads to heavy casualties, and Trump will be in an impossible position,” he writes.
“Staying after such a deadly attack and possibly sending reinforcements would guarantee mission creep, while withdrawing would be politically suicidal and strategically disastrous.”
Professor Norrlöf foresees such a stalemate resulting in alliance-shattering effects.
“Kharg Island looks like the kind of target the world’s strongest military should be able to turn into leverage with relative ease. But difficult trade-offs would soon follow,” Professor Norrlöf writes.
President Trump’s amphibious assault may perpetuate the oil supply crisis. And he may demand US allies help pay the price — in material and lives — to fix it.
“In earlier periods, those costs might have been willingly absorbed within the US alliance network,” Professor Norrlöf notes.
“Not anymore. What has changed is not simply the distribution of costs, but expectations about who will bear them, and uncertainty about whether they will be shared at all.”
Slippery slope
Indications are that President Trump hadn’t planned for this.His aides, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution, reportedly revealed early in March that Iran had not been expected to block the Strait of Hormuz.
President Trump had assumed that doing so would hurt Tehran’s bottom line more than Washington’s.
But it happened anyway. And the price of crude oil has since soared more than 50 per cent.
Almost six weeks and 22,000 thousand bombs and missiles later, the Strait is still closed. And the economic shockwaves rippling around the globe are growing.
Now, the strategic thinking of the 79-year-old 47th President of the United States is changing. Fast.
On March 31, the Strait of Hormuz was Europe, Asia and Oceania’s problem.
“Build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT. You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us.”
On April 2, it still wasn’t his problem:
“The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait… We don’t need it. We haven’t needed it, and we don’t need it.”
On April 3, he could solve it anyway — if he wanted to.
“With a little more time, we can easily OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE. IT WOULD BE A ‘GUSHER’ FOR THE WORLD???”
But, by Easter Sunday, it had become a problem.
“Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH!”
What changed?
Iran didn’t.
The Strait truth
Tehran hasn’t responded to President Trump’s demands in the way he expected. It seems highly unlikely that the Strait will be surrendered by 10am Wednesday, Australian Eastern time.
That’s despite the President insisting the surviving Tehran leadership was the one “begging to make a deal – not me”.
Kharg Island has been on his mind for years.
As far back as 1988, he was urging the US to “do a number” on it.
Now he has the numbers to do so.
Some 2000 paratroopers of the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division have arrived in the area. They’re joining up to 5000 Marines aboard the assault ships USS Tripoli and USS Boxer.
These are just the tip of the spear.
In total, the US now has some 50,000 troops deployed to the Middle East.
If left high and dry on Wednesday, analysts believe President Trump may feel compelled to make another grand gesture.
He’s already tried the “shock and awe” of massed airstrikes. Several times.
It hasn’t worked.
So that may leave “boots on the ground” as the only remaining option.
And the same Strait of Hormuz that he has been so keen to dismiss as irrelevant appears to be his best remaining bet.
Especially the oil bit.
“Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options,” President Trump told the Financial Times last week. “It would also mean we had to be there for a while.”
He confidently added, “I don’t think they have any defence. We could take it very easily.”
His marines and paratroopers are ready to roll.
But Iran still has a vote on the outcome.
A beachhead too far
President Trump hasn’t been shy about his ambitions for Iran’s oil.
“To be honest with you, my favourite thing is to take the oil in Iran, but some stupid people back in the US say: ‘Why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people,” he told the Financial Times last weekend.
There’s little doubt that US Marines and paratroopers can take Kharg Island for him.
“The far more challenging question is what happens if they succeed, but Iran still doesn’t budge, or worse, responds by escalating? What does Trump do then?” argues Chatham House and Atlantic Council analyst Saab.
That scenario would prevent insurers from backing tankers taking the narrow passage. So, 20 per cent of the world’s oil would remain bottled up.
“Iran will still be able to survive for months before it runs out of money,” Saab adds. “During that period, it will undoubtedly escalate, forcing Trump and the world economy to absorb far more economic pain and regional instability than what’s been experienced thus far.”
President Trump may not need help to take it.
But he may need help to keep it. And repair it.
“It’s one thing to seize an island and another altogether to hold it — under enemy fire no less,” Saab argues. “Inevitably, the longer US troops hold Kharg, the more complicated sustainment operations will be.”
Will the insults he has hurled at long-term US allies come back to haunt him?
“For years now, the US has treated alliances less as durable commitments than as arrangements to be publicly questioned and renegotiated,” argues Professor Norrlöf.
With the Iran war, the Trump Administration has discovered that this cuts both ways: “This change has prompted allies to hedge their bets by not automatically aligning themselves with the US during crises.”
Seizing Kharg Island would stress Iran.
But it would also strain the United States
That’s why Trump may demand a coalition of the unwilling to help hold it.
If they don’t, the Island again becomes a tool for geopolitical blackmail.
This time in Washington’s hands. Not Tehran’s.
“That is why Kharg Island — the ‘forbidden island’ — matters,” Professor Norrlöf concludes.
“It is important not because it lies beyond American reach, but because it is tempting the US to pursue a course of action with consequences others may not be willing to shoulder.”
