News24 | Trump eyes Iran’s Kharg Island, but taking it could hurt US troops, warn analysts

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he wanted to take over Kharg Island, Iran’s oil infrastructure hub.

Analysts say the US military could seize the island quickly, but the move could leave US troops in great peril and prolong rather than shorten the war.

Kharg Island sits 26km from Iran’s coast in the northern end of the Gulf, about 483km northwest of the Strait of Hormuz.

It lies in waters deep enough to enable the docking of tankers that are too large to approach the Iranian mainland’s shallow coastal waters.

The island handled 90% of Iran’s oil exports before the war started on 28 February.

READ | Iran pours cold water on Trump claim that deal to end war is near

Iran is the ⁠third-largest producer in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

🚨 President Donald J. Trump on cancelled scheduled strikes against Iran. pic.twitter.com/iIijh6j5m2

US forces carried out strikes against Kharg in March and April, and Trump said they “totally obliterated” all military targets there and said they could next target oil infrastructure.

US officials told Reuters at the time the administration was weighing whether to send ground forces to the island.

Kharg has not been attacked since then, though the US has targeted oil tankers near the island as it maintains a blockade on Iranian ports.

Trump on Thursday said he would like to seize the oil hub, though he did not indicate clear plans to do so.

“My preference has always been – take Kharg Island ... my preference would be that. I don’t know that America has the stomach for it,” he told Fox News.

Seizing ‌the ⁠island might not have an immediate impact on Iran’s economy, as the country’s oil exports have already been severely curtailed by the war.

US troops could likely seize the island relatively quickly, but that would not necessarily lead to a quick and decisive end to the war, experts said.

“A seizure and occupation of Kharg Island is more likely to expand and extend the war than it is to deliver any sort of decisive ⁠victory,” Ryan Brobst and Cameron McMillan of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies wrote in March.

They said that US troops would be exposed to missile and drone attacks, including, potentially, camera-wielding “first-person view drones” that are already used by the millions in Ukraine.

“Upon any successful strikes, the Iranian regime would be expected ⁠to release videos of those attacks online, using the graphic deaths of American service members as propaganda,” they said.

A former commander of the US Central Command, Joseph Votel, told TWZ.com in March that while