ABOUT 30 KILOMETRES off the southern coast of Iran sits Kharg Island, home to the country’s most important oil export terminal, which has found itself in the crosshairs of the United States.

Attacks on energy infrastructure have had dramatic effects on the price of oil since the US and Israel launched their illegal war against Iran almost a month ago.

In spite of this, and Trump’s repeated claims to be in direct negotiations with Iranian officials (which Iran has denied), the US is reportedly considering a ground invasion of the small island.

If that attack were to go ahead, it would risk not only exacerbating the global energy crisis, but could also result in heavy American casualties, according to military strategy experts.

A map showing Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

What is Kharg Island?

The oil storage and export facilities on Kharg Island are vital to Iran’s economy, which was already in turmoil before the war began.

Iran exports around 90% of its crude oil from the island in the northern Persian Gulf, most of which goes to Asia, particularly to China.

The terminal deals with around 1.5 million barrels of crude every day, making it the source of about 1.5% of the world’s supply.

Oil is sent from Iran’s main oil fields to Kharg Island via pipelines that run underwater from the mainland.

Jetties stemming from the east side of the island allow mega tankers to dock and take on huge amounts of oil, before bringing it through the Strait of Hormuz and out into the Indian Ocean.

Critically, revenue from the oil exported from Kharg is a major source of funding for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

Oil storage facilities on Kharg Island, pictured in 2016. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

What have the Americans been saying?

The United States government has not yet officially declared its intention to seize control of the island, but numerous reports from sources in the White House as well as public statements from Republican politicians have indicated that could well be the plan.

“Here’s what I tell President Trump: keep it up for a few more weeks, take Kharg Island where all of the resources they have to produce oil, control that island, let this regime die on a vine,” Republican senator Lindsey Graham told Fox News last week.

Graham drew a parallel between such an invasion and the US battle for the Japanese island of Iwo Jima during World War II, during which nearly 6,800 American soldiers died.

“We did Iwo Jima, we can do this,” he said.

What have the Iranians been saying?

Yesterday, as reports of US military preparations to invade the island continued to circulate, an Iranian military official told the Iranian Tasnim news agency that if the assault were to take place, Tehran would respond by targeting ships passing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

The Mandeb Strait, like the Strait of Hormuz in which Iran has halted most marine traffic since the war began, is a vital artery for global shipping.

Flanked by the African continent and Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula, it connects the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea.

Iran would likely employ its allies in Yemen, Ansar Allah (the Houthis), to carry out the strikes that could cut off the critical maritime chokepoint. The Yemeni group has remained relatively quiet during the current war, but it caused significant disruption in the Red Sea while attacking Israeli-linked ships during the height of the geonicide in Gaza, Palestine. 

“If the enemy attempts a ground operation on Iranian islands or anywhere else on our territory, or if it seeks to impose costs on Iran through naval manoeuvres in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, we will open other fronts as a ‘surprise’,” the official was quoted as saying by Tasnim.

“The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is among the most strategic straits in the world, and Iran has both the will and the capability to pose a fully credible threat against it,” the official said.

That threat was then followed by similar comments from Iran’s powerful parliament speaker, who warned an unnamed Gulf state against assisting the US in launching any attack.

“Based on some intelligence reports, Iran’s enemies are preparing to occupy one of the Iranian islands with support from one of the regional states,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote in an X post written in both Persian and Arabic.

“Our forces are monitoring all enemy movements, and if they take any step, all the vital infrastructure of that regional state will be targeted with relentless, unceasing attacks.”

Next to Iran, Kuwait is the closest country to Kharg and is also home to a number of US military bases. 

What US forces have been deployed in recent weeks?

All of these threats and counterthreats have been made while the US is sending almost 7,000 additional troops to the Middle East.

Those forces include two Marine Expeditionary Units with a total compliment of around 4,500 marines, as well as a contingent of around 2,000 paratroopers from the US military’s 82nd Airborne Division.

There are already around 50,000 US troops taking part in the Trump administration’s operation “Epic Fury”, based in the Middle East, Europe and the US.

What have analysts said about the possibility of a ground invasion?

Military analysts have voiced concern, and in some cases outright alarm, at the prospect of the US military being ordered to attempt an invasion of Kharg Island.

That assault could take the form of an airborne invasion or an amphious attack, the latter being the specialty of the marine units currently on their way to the area.

US intelligence officials have told CNN that Iran has been laying traps and reinforcing defensive capabilities on and around the island in preparation for an AMerican attack.

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The US has said it already bombed military targets on the island earlier in the war, with Trump saying he had spared the oil infrastructure out of a sense of “decency”.

Those attacks reportedly damaged the runway on Kharg, which would make landing US troops on the island more difficult.

Even if the US did manage to get through Iran’s defences and seize the island, analysts have said those forces would come under repeated attacks from the Iranian mainland in the forms of drone and ballistic missile strikes.

Retired admiral James Stavridis, a former Nato supreme allied commander, said he would be “very worried about this”.

“Iranians are clever and ruthless. They will do everything they can to inflict maximum casualties on US forces both on the ships at sea, and especially once ground troops are anywhere in their sovereign territory.”

Harrison Mann, a former US Army major and executive officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Middle East/Africa Regional Center, recently wrote in an article for the Quincy Institute think tank that an invasion of Kharg would amount to a “suicide mission”.

Joe Kent, who recently resigned as Trump’s counter terrorism chief, told The Washington Post over the weekend that having US troops hold the island would effectively make them “hostages”.

“I just think that would be a disaster,” Kent said. “It would essentially be giving Iran a bunch of hostages on an island that they could barrage with drones and missiles.”

As well as posing a risk of significant US casualties, an attack on Kharg Island would also undoubtedly escalate the current energy crisis. 

It would also raise the possibilty of Chinese involvement in the war as it would threaten a major source of the country’s oil imports. China imported 1.4m barrels of crude from Iran last year. 

With reporting from AFP

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