Trump leaves door open to seizing Kharg island as experts map out the risks

Hundreds of U.S. Marines storm ashore as helicopters thunder overhead, Navy warships and fighter jets establish overwhelming air and sea superiority, and commanders issue one final warning to Iranian forces: surrender or be overrun.

That is how military experts envision the opening hours of a potential U.S. operation to seize Iran’s Kharg Island—the tiny but strategically vital island that handles roughly 90% of the Islamic Republic’s crude oil exports and has become the centerpiece of Washington’s economic pressure campaign against Tehran.

The scenario was thrust back into the spotlight Tuesday after President Donald Trump declined to rule out taking the island. “I can’t say that to you because if I did, it would be foolish,” Trump told Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst during an exclusive interview on ‘Special Report’ when asked directly whether he planned to seize Kharg island. He added that previous U.S. strikes intentionally avoided the island’s oil facilities because they are “a chunk of the world economy.”

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Satellite view of Kharg Island, located in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Iran. (Gallo Images/Orbital Horizon/Copernicus Sentinel Data 2024)

“There are a lot of ways to skin this cat,” Vice Adm. (Ret.) Robert Harward, former deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, told Fox News Digital in an interview.

Harward explained a Marine Expeditionary Unit could conduct an amphibious assault while U.S. naval and air forces establish complete control over the battlespace, giving Iranian defenders an opportunity to surrender before major fighting begins. The goal, he said, would not simply be to capture the island but to preserve the oil infrastructure that could one day serve a post-Islamic Republic government.

“The real objective at the end of the day is to minimize risk,” said Harward. “Not only to your own forces, but to the people you’re coming in contact with,” while also limiting damage to facilities that could eventually be handed over to “a government of Iran that is focused on supporting its people, as opposed to proliferating the Islamic Revolution.”

Trump’s remarks echoed Harward’s assessment that preserving Kharg’s oil facilities would likely be a key military objective. Trump said he had instructed U.S. forces during previous strikes to “hit everything, but the oil,” explaining that damaging the export terminal could have significant consequences for the global economy.

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U.S. forces conduct a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding of the Veronica III without incident in the INDOPACOM area of responsibility after the vessel allegedly tried to defy President Trump’s quarantine, Feb. 15, 2026. (X/@DeptofWar)

But military experts say capturing Kharg may be the easiest part of the mission.

Located just 16 miles off Iran’s Gulf coast, the eight-square-mile island sits well within range of Iranian missiles, drones and shore-based anti-ship weapons. While analysts believe U.S. forces could likely seize the island within hours, holding it against sustained retaliation from the nearby mainland could require a far larger and longer military commitment—raising the risk of direct war with Iran itself.

Kharg’s strategic importance predates Iran’s modern oil industry. British forces briefly occupied the island during confrontations with Persia over Herat in 1838 and again during the Anglo-Persian War in 1856, using its location near the Iranian coast to apply pressure on Tehran. Nearly a century later, Iran selected Kharg as a deep-water oil terminal because its sheltered waters could accommodate large tankers. Construction began in the late 1950s, and the terminal entered service in 1960, transforming the island into the principal outlet for Iranian crude.

“Everybody talks about seizing Kharg,” Nicholas Carl, assistant director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute, told Fox News Digital. “Iran has spent decades investing in denial capabilities designed specifically to keep U.S. forces away from its shores.” Those capabilities include anti-ship cruise missiles, drones, naval mines and hundreds of fast attack craft designed to overwhelm superior naval forces.

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A satellite image shows an oil terminal at Kharg Island, Iran, February 25, 2026. (2026 Planet Labs PBC/Handout via Reuters)

Military planners have long viewed Iran’s anti-access strategy as one of the most sophisticated in the Middle East. Rather than matching the U.S. Navy ship for ship, Tehran has invested heavily in asymmetric weapons intended to make any amphibious assault costly.

Harward, a former member of the National Security Council and current member of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America’s Iran Policy Project, acknowledged that once American forces were on Kharg, the primary danger would shift from conventional naval combat to missile and drone attacks launched from the nearby mainland.

“Iran doesn’t really have air power,” Harward said. “The concern is whether they launch missiles and drones at the island with U.S. forces on the ground. That’s the biggest risk.”

Harward said the viability of the operation would ultimately depend on intelligence about the number and disposition of Iranian forces, whether they had prepared booby traps or improvised explosive devices, and how Tehran might respond once American troops were ashore.

Still, he argued, such retaliation would come at a price for Tehran.

“If they start striking Kharg itself, they become accountable for damaging their own economic lifeline,” he said.

The challenge illustrates the distinction between tactical success and strategic success. Seizing an eight-square-mile island is one military problem. Defending it against sustained attacks only a short distance from Iranian territory is another.

A general view of the Port of Kharg Island Oil Terminal, 25 km from the Iranian coast in the Persian Gulf and 483 km northwest of the Strait of Hormuz, in Iran on March 12, 2017. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Harward suggested Washington still has several options short of launching an amphibious assault.

With the U.S.-led blockade, reinforced Tuesday, already constraining Iran’s oil exports, he argued that additional economic pressure could target overland transportation routes, border crossings and air traffic instead of committing ground troops.

“There is still a lot you could do to enhance the economic challenges to Iran,” Harward said. “Synchronizing military, economic and political pressure is really the strategy.”

Some strategists have also questioned whether Kharg is the most valuable military objective.

Mark Fox, a retired Vice Admiral and a former commander of the 5th Fleet, previously told Fox News Digital that Kharg is fundamentally an oil terminal rather than a military fortress. Instead, he argued, smaller islands such as Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa—disputed islands near the Strait of Hormuz—could present more manageable military objectives while creating a significant strategic dilemma for Tehran because of their location along one of the world’s most important shipping lanes.

For Harward, however, the larger question extends beyond any single island.

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Export oil pipelines are seen at an oil facility on Kharg Island, on the shore of the Gulf, Feb. 23, 2016. (Str/AFP Via Getty Images)

“I think the only real end state to ensure long-term stability and security in the region is a government of Iran that renounces the Islamic Revolution and focuses on the Iranian people,” he said. That would require ending Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, halting support for proxy groups, protecting freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and ending the regime’s domestic repression.

Whether Washington ever decides to seize Kharg, military planners agree on one point: Capturing Iran’s economic lifeline would likely be measured in hours, but successfully holding it—and managing the regional escalation that could follow — would be a far longer and more complex campaign.