Iran’s Kharg Island… A Trap or Leverage?

When Baghdad sought in the 1980s to inflict pain on Tehran during their war, one of its recurring targets was Kharg Island — Iran’s most vital oil artery.

Today, Kharg is back in the spotlight, as thousands of U.S. troops head to the Middle East. This raises a critical question: does exerting pressure on Tehran require a U.S. military presence on the island, which Washington considers the crown jewel of Iran?

By the numbers, Kharg — through which roughly 90% of Iran’s oil exports pass — appears to be an attractive target for any strategy aimed at quickly choking Iran’s financial revenues. This leads David Deptula, a retired U.S. Air Force general, to reframe the question by focusing more on the objective than the capability. Deptula told Alhurra: “The question is not: can you seize Kharg? But what effect would that achieve?”

If the goal is to halt or restrict Iranian shipments leaving the island, that does not necessarily require occupying it, Deptula says. It could instead be achieved through “air-dropped mines, long-range strikes, and maritime interdiction.”

A Costly Scenario

U.S. reinforcements may not be limited to a ground intervention option. They could instead aim to secure the Strait of Hormuz, impose a blockade on the island rather than physically seize it, or simply expand support and deterrence in a rapidly evolving operational environment.

Nevertheless, many military experts believe the “ground scenario” remains the most costly and riskiest. Any operation to seize the island would likely not begin with a sudden landing but would instead be preceded by an intensive preparatory campaign. This would include strikes targeting missile depots, mine-laying sites, and defensive nodes, in an effort to cripple Iran’s ability to target the sea and surrounding waterways.

Since mid-March, the United States has carried out strikes on more than 90 military targets on the island. U.S. President Donald Trump said those strikes completely destroyed the military targets there and warned of the possibility of targeting oil infrastructure if Tehran continues to threaten navigation.

The Military Cost

Reuters quoted retired U.S. General Joseph Votel, former commander of U.S. Central Command, as saying that seizing Kharg Island might require only about 800 to 1,000 troops.

However, this figure does not reflect the scale of the entire operation — and that is where the real cost lies.

Any force attempting to control the island would need air cover, protective naval vessels, defenses against drones and missiles, and permanently open supply lines, according to military experts. The military risk is heightened by the island’s location within direct Iranian threat range: it lies only about 26 kilometers off the Iranian coast and roughly 483 kilometers northwest of the Strait of Hormuz.

“Holding it would expose U.S. forces to continuous attacks,” Deptula says, and would create “a major problem in force protection and resupply.”

Deptula invokes Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Ground forces, he notes, did not start the war but were used in its final stages — and only because achieving the declared objective, liberating Kuwait, required actual control of territory that airpower alone could not deliver.

Iran’s Options

Tehran would view any attempt to seize Kharg by ground as a “major escalation,” Deptula says — one that could increase the risk of a broader Iranian response across the Gulf, “particularly in the Strait of Hormuz.”

For its part, Iran’s Defense Council warned on March 23 that any attack on its coasts or islands would lead to the mining of Gulf shipping routes, including the deployment of floating mines launched from the shore. It stressed that the entire Gulf could effectively become a zone similar to the Strait of Hormuz for an extended period.

Beyond Kharg, Iran has other export terminals, but its ability to compensate for the island’s role remains extremely limited. The port of Jask — in which Tehran has invested heavily as an alternative outlet outside the Strait of Hormuz to ease pressure on Kharg — is connected by a pipeline from Bushehr province with a capacity of up to one million barrels per day. However, according to reports, only limited shipments have been recorded there so far.

Smaller terminals such as Sirri, Lavan, and Soroush rarely load tankers to full capacity.

Therefore, any major disruption to Iranian oil exports through Kharg would not only mean the loss of a key export hub but would also expose the fragility of Iran’s alternatives. This is precisely what makes the island militarily attractive on one hand — and strategically dangerous on the other.