President Donald Trump threatened to seize Iran’s main oil export hub, Kharg Island, on Thursday, before flip-flopping on the grounds that the American people “don’t have the stomach” for what military experts say would be an invasion entailing large US casualties.
“The United States will be hitting Iran… VERY HARD TONIGHT,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social network on Thursday.
“At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela,” he added.
The Trump administration considered launching an operation to take Kharg Island in the first month of the war on Iran, but eventually backed off the plan.
Former senior US and western military officials told Middle East Eye at the time that the US would likely be able to establish a bridgehead on Kharg Island, but that a US invading force would face intense fire from Iran as it approached the island and more difficulties trying to hold it.
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But the threat to escalate comes as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio eyes a visit to the Gulf states, stopping in Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE, MEE reported.
Trump himself appeared to acknowledge the high casualty cost of such an operation. He walked back the threat in an interview with Fox News shortly after his post.
‘The country has no appetite for it’
“My preference has always been – take Kharg Island…my preference would be that. I don’t know that America has the stomach for it,” Trump told Fox News.
Kalev Sepp, a former US special forces officer and emeritus professor at the US Naval Postgraduate School, told MEE that a US invasion force would likely depend on basing in Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE or Kuwait.
“They can’t do this without neighbouring Gulf states giving them access to bases,” he told MEE.
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The Gulf states generally supported US military activity at the height of the war, but have since shifted towards pushing for a negotiated settlement.
Even the UAE, which has been the most hawkish Gulf state towards Iran, engaged in face-to-face talks with senior Iranian officials this week in a bid to de-escalate tensions, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
A Gulf diplomat told MEE their government believed the meeting was held in Tehran, citing an open-source account on X that tracked an Emirati plane known to carry Emirati officials.
In addition to Gulf buy-in, the bigger strategic challenge for the US would be holding Kharg Island after landing marines or paratroopers there, experts say.
“These forces are very good at securing a foothold because they are extremely light and can move quickly. The moment they become static, they become a target that needs to be protected and supplied,” Daniel Davis, a former US Army lieutenant colonel, told MEE. ”It would be a shooting gallery.”
‘Submit’
Trump’s flip-flopping again underscored the disconnect between his public statements on Iran and its continued demonstration of military capabilities.
Trump said Iran’s “Navy, Air Force, Radar, Anti Aircraft, and all other forms of Defense, together with most of its offensive capability, are GONE,” which suggests that it would be an easy battle to take Kharg Island.
Trump also walked back a threat to attack Iran’s civilian infrastructure, which is a war crime.
“I’d rather not do it, because once you do that, the people suffer,” Trump said, after threatening to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges.
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But the US has escalated its strikes on Iran in defiance of a ceasefire it reached with Tehran in April.
The New York Times reported that the US on Thursday targeted a drinking-water facility on Iran’s southern coast, which Iranian officials said left 20,000 people without water.
Attacking civilian infrastructure like water facilities is considered a war crime under international law.
The US also attacked a commercial tanker in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday, killing three Indian crew members.
The US said it targeted the ship for failing to abide by its blockade of the waterway. Oman launched a rescue operation after the US strike, and India summoned the US deputy chief of mission at the American embassy in New Delhi to protest against the strike.
The US’s attacks come as Trump increasingly expresses his frustration that Iran is failing to agree to his terms to end the war.
“The whole thing is crazy, and they’re really in submission; they just don’t know it yet,” Trump told Fox.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, meanwhile, vowed on Thursday to use Iranian funds to pay for damage that the country causes to Gulf allies. Iran has attacked Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait in response to the US strikes. All these countries are home to US military bases.
“Any damage it inflicts on our allies in the Gulf will be paid for with funds extracted from Iranian Accounts,” Bessent wrote on X.
Bessent also said that “any tolls paid to the Persian Gulf Strait Authority will be offset by funds extracted from their accounts”.
The authority is Iran’s new agency for collecting transit fees in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical energy transit waterway that Tehran has essentially closed off since early in the war.
