Kharg Island is the crown jewel of Iran’s oil industry.This tiny coral island handles 90% of Iran’s oil exports. The island has terminals for loading ships with up to 6 million barrels per day and can store 30 million barrels of crude oil and. Of course, it’s under the control of the loathsome Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, who mix money and terror."Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t.
We have a lot of options," President Donald Trump told the Financial Times back on March 29. Then on Thursday, Trump bandied about a U.S.military seizure of Kharg Island. Clearly, it remains at the top of the list for strike options.Can you imagine Iran’s oil spigot in Trump’s hands? Just the credible threat of seizing the oil export terminals on Kharg Island might be enough to make even Iran’s hardliners sign Trump’s deal.US EYES SEIZING IRAN’S OIL LIFELINE — BUT IT MAY NOT CRIPPLE TEHRAN This no idle threat. In fact, taking Kharg Island is a much more straightforward prospect now than it was before Operation Epic Fury. Here’s the main point: from a tactical perspective, an air assault on Kharg Island is well within the skill set of U.S.
forces now in place in the Persian Gulf. The Marines of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli have this capability.So does the 82nd Airborne Division, which deployed elements to Kuwait in March. First off, the IRGC military infrastructure on Kharg Island has already been softened up. On March 13, U.S.
forces carried out "a large-scale precision strike" and "destroyed naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers, and multiple other military sites. U.S.forces successfully struck more than 90 Iranian military targets on Kharg Island, while preserving the oil infrastructure," U.S.
Central Command stated. Kharg Island targets were hit again on April 7, just before the ceasefire took hold. Remember U.S.Central Command has kept Kharg Island under 24/...