Trump Is Poised To Take Iran’s Kharg Island. Here’s What Could Unfold Next.

A tiny Iranian island responsible for virtually all of the country’s oil exports is in President Donald Trump’s crosshairs.

Trump began attacking Kharg Island, the 5-mile strip of land that nearly all of Iran's oil exports pass through, late last week as part of his war against the country. He's warning that a broader assault could come next as part of his campaign to get Iran to stop targeting tankers in the all-important Strait of Hormuz.

“We can knock out their oil in Kharg Island,” Trump told reporters Tuesday. “The only thing we didn't take down was the oil, because if we knock out, I call them the pipes, very complex, but if you do that, it will take them forever to rebuild.”

Hitting or seizing the island holds enormous risk for a president whose political standing at home could erode if military action against Kharg Island ignites a full-scale war by Iran against energy infrastructure across the Persian Gulf. A widening conflict in the Middle East involving the destruction of oil fields ports, and natural gas storage depots could send crude prices soaring — and bring the world closer to a recession.

If Trump follows through on his threat, it could embolden Iran’s hard-liners and make it more difficult for the U.S. to identify pragmatic leaders it could work with after the conflict, said Michael Rubin, who was a senior Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq in the George W. Bush administration.

“The lesson we learned in Iraq was that you don't destroy the infrastructure of a country that you want to be your ally the day after regime change,” he said.

White House officials declined comment, but referred to Trump’s previous statements on Kharg.

As the world awaits Trump’s decision on Kharg, here are four scenarios that could unfold:

Kharg is seized

Trump’s public comments indicate that his plan for re-opening the Strait of Hormuz is to gain control of Kharg, starve the regime of its oil revenue and force it to disarm. If the administration follows its oil blockade strategy in Venezuela earlier this year, that could start with American ships surrounding the island, to prevent tankers from refilling.

A Marine expeditionary unit should arrive in the region in about a week. It would be capable of launching a ground invasion aimed at seizing control of the island’s oil terminal — the riskiest operation by U.S. forces since the war broke out.

It is essential that Trump use whatever leverage he has to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as soon as possible, said Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker and a close ally of the president.

“If we do that, if we can succeed in that, then frankly, the president can prosecute the war as long as he needs to because the price of oil will collapse,” he said. “People will be happy again with the inflation rate. The rest of the world will relax.”

Kharg is destroyed

A key rule of Trump’s political life has been that he prefers to act quickly and on gut instinct.

On Monday, he indicated having his finger on the trigger for an operation against the island’s “pipes.”

“Just one simple word and the pipes will be gone, too,” he told reporters, referring to its oil infrastructure.

Iran’s regime has already survived airstrikes aimed at beheading its leadership. Targeting its oil revenue — the lifeblood of the regime — could push it into a new phase of retaliatory strikes, Iranian officials have repeatedly stated.

On Tuesday, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, warned on X that “The Strait of Hormuz situation won't return to its pre-war status.”

Iran has repeatedly attacked energy infrastructure in Gulf nations, but it has not launched a full-scale assault on those targets.

That could change if U.S.-Israeli forces destroy Kharg, said Rubin, who is now a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. It could also hurt the Iranian people by depriving the nation of financial resources, at a time when the U.S. is trying to build support for overthrowing the regime.

“If you destroy Kharg, then Iran simply isn't going to be able to get up and running at a time when we want it to, which only empowers an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps insurgency,” Rubin said.

It’s not just Kharg

Iran has other methods of getting oil to market.

The regime has spent years building alternative ways to export its crude, said Anas Alhajji, a global energy markets expert. There is evidence that the regime is beginning to use them.

He said there is a false impression in the media and the Trump administration that if Kharg “was bombed or it was occupied, then it's the end of the oil revenues and probably the end of the regime.”

“All of this is complete nonsense,” Alhajji said.

Iran has worked for years to evade sanctions on its oil by working with China. It has several ports in the Persian Gulf where smaller ships can load oil without being noticed. China has ports where they can be off-loaded secretly, he said.

“They can literally operate without Kharg Island, without any problems,” Alhajji said.

Iran has also built pipelines. One terminates at the Persian Gulf near the border with Iraq, where ships can load oil. Another pipeline runs south, circumventing the Strait of Hormuz.

“What we are seeing now is that there are tankers loading out of there, which means that they are using that just in case Kharg Island is attacked,” Alhajji said.

Risks facing Trump

Trump and administration officials have insisted that high domestic gas prices is short-term pain for long-term gain.

Even if the war ends today, it could take months for oil supplies to normalize.. A wrong move on Kharg threatens to extend that timeline, potentially into November’s midterm elections.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh told Sky News on Monday that attacking Kharg would turn the conflict into a quagmire.

“Just read what happened in Vietnam,” he said.

Taking Kharg offline would remove up to 2 million barrels of oil a day from the global market, said Rory Johnston, an oil analyst who writes the newsletter “Commodity Context.” That would increase market volatility at a time when oil has soared above $100 a barrel.

Market disruptions could multiply if Iran responds by targeting energy facilities.

“[The Iranians] haven't yet been targeting the actual port and loading facilities, which they very easily could, so if they go this route there's a chance that we move into an even worse supply crisis,” Johnston said.

A cascading crisis that prevents Persian Gulf nations from sending their oil — 20 million barrels a day — to market would send shock waves around the globe.

That’s how oil could skyrocket to $200 — potentially leading to a recession, Johnston said.