Will Trump seize Iran's Kharg Island?

Iran’s most strategically vital oil facility, now on President Trump’s hitlist, is known to Iranians as the “Forbidden Island”. Located about 15.5 miles off the coast of Iran in the northern Persian Gulf, Kharg Island, a tiny coral outcrop, is heaving with oil storage tanks, loading terminals and pipelines. It represents Iran’s lifeblood and is protected by thousands of troops from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Access to Kharg is heavily restricted which is why it has acquired the sobriquet ,“Forbidden Island”. Millions of barrels of crude oil flow from Iran’s principle oil fields through pipelines to Kharg Island every day. The island was selected because it’s located in deep water, suitable for the arrival and departure of oil tankers. Iran supplies more than 4.5 per cent of global oil. Kharg Island currently has an estimated 18 million barrels of crude stored in tanks. After a mass US bombing raid last week on Karg Island which, according to Trump, “totally obliterated” everything military, from air defences to drone-launching sites, the path has been laid for an amphibious landing by thousands of American Marines. currently en route from the Philippine Sea. Such an operation, aimed at seizing control of the island through which around 90 per cent of Iran’s crude oil passes to its global customers, would be Trump’s most daring and potentially most risky offensive mission against the Tehran regime since the war began on February 28. The insertion of Marines – the first boots on the ground in Operation Epic Fury – would expand and extend the confrontation with Tehran. It would no longer be an air war lasting “four or five weeks”. Territorial occupation, even if limited in time, could provoke retaliation on a different scale. All of these factors are being weighed up by the Pentagon and the White House, as the 2,500 troops of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) on board the big-deck amphibious assault ship, USS Tripoli and two other vessels, make their way to the Middle East. They are due to arrive next week. A successful seizure of Kharg Island would provide Trump with the ultimate leverage to persuade Tehran to capitulate, albeit that so far the regime has shown no sign of giving in to the president’s demands. The air and Tomahawk-missile attacks on Kharg Island carefully avoided any targeting of the oil terminals and other vital infrastructure The threat to destroy this crucial sector of Iran’s oil empire is still one of the options on Trump’s list. But to do so would cause a spiralling of global oil prices. There is another factor. China is Iran’s largest oil customer, and Trump is still due to meet with President Xi Zinping in Beijing later this month. The destruction of Kharg Island’s oil terminals would scupper not only the planned visit but also relations between Beijing and Washington. So, the second option, an amphibious landing and occupation by Marines would mean the US could hold the island hostage in return for Tehran agreeing to stop blocking the Strait of Hormuz, and allow 20 per cent of the world’s oil to pass through the chokepoint safely. It would be a huge gamble. Kharg Island may be only five miles long by about three miles wide. But it could require more than 2,500 US Marines to seize and hold it. Double that number would make more military sense, although an MEU is self-sufficient and comes with tanks, artillery, armoured vehicles, helicopters and its own F-35B vertical take-off fighter jets. What has not been revealed is how many of the IRGC residents of Kharg Island were killed in last week’s bombing raids and how well they may have been reinforced from the mainland. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES.