U.S. military planning for some sort of ground operation seems to be moving ahead. “Kharg Island is very much in play,” a former U.S. official told NBC on March 21. “It always has been.” According to the NBC report, seizing control of the oil facilities with several hundred troops instead would be designed to collapse the Iranian regime’s economy by depriving it of its primary source of revenue, with the U.S. using that leverage to negotiate an end to the conflict, according to current and former U.S. officials. They argue that the most perilous option for U.S. ground troops in Iran also could be the most definitive, sending troops into Iran to find, retrieve, and secure Iran’s highly enriched uranium.
Tasnim quoted an Iranian military source who said: “If the U.S. carries out its threats regarding a military aggression on Kharg Island, it will definitely face a response that is unprecedented compared to the surprises of the last 21 days of war. Insecurity in other straits, including the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Red Sea, is one of the options of the Resistance Front, and the situation will become much more complicated than it is today for the Americans.”
Further, regarding the Strait of Hormuz, the same source said of the U.S.: “On one hand, they officially announced that they are lifting the Iranian oil embargo for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in order to control global oil price. And on the other hand, they say that they want to attack Kharg Island to solve the oil problem in the world. These two declared strategies of the U.S. are completely contradictory to each other. If the Americans attack Kharg Island, firstly, oil production could be temporarily disrupted, secondly, Iran would set fire to all the facilities in the region and the situation would become much more complicated for the Americans and the region. Thirdly, the Americans would have no way to protect Kharg and would suffer losses that are unprecedented since World War II.”
Tasnim also reported from a military source (unclear whether it’s the same source) that Iran is shifting from an “eye for an eye” military strategy to one that imposes heavier costs: “The enemy must have realized by now that if it attacks one infrastructure, we will attack several of their infrastructures; if it attacks a refinery or gas facility, we will attack several similar facilities and teach them a crushing lesson. Iran will respond to every mistake of the enemy with surprise and set their interests on fire.”
