Send the Marines to seize Iran’s Kharg Island and break the mullahs’ regime for good. President Trump has stated that, unlike other presidents, and despite his aversion to protracted wars, he is not going to rule out putting U.S. boots on the ground in Iran. Hopefully, only for a very limited time.
If done strategically, it could quickly hasten the regime’s collapse.
One highly effective way to do this, with minimum boots and without the risk of a major U.S. ground force on the Iranian mainland — but providing a very high reward — is to seize Iran’s Kharg Island, about 15 miles off the coast, through which 90% of its oil is exported.
This oil revenue pays the regime’s bureaucrats, military and security forces, and powers the economy. The major dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program last year by Israel and the U.S. raised serious questions from regime supporters about what their multibillion-dollar sacrifice was for in the end.
Add to that the loss of Iran’s oil revenue, and even the regime’s most strident supporters would likely slink away.
About half of the nation’s $50 billion oil industry is controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). That includes a ghost fleet of oil tankers that take its sanctioned crude abroad, mostly to China.
Iran pipes most of the oil they produce to the Kharg Oil Terminal on the island, built during the Shah’s time. The Persian Gulf is extremely narrow and shallow, preventing ordinary tankers, much less the supertankers that today carry most crude oil, from getting near the Iranian coast.
While less than eight square miles in total, Kharg Island is the jugular vein of the Iranian economy, a critical “choke point.” It can berth six tankers at a time and is reported to be rushing its oil out to safety, even as we speak.
Kharg is a significant target, but it is tailor-made for Trump. After all, Trump often says he will take adversaries’ oil to benefit their people and American companies. This is one more big opportunity to do so.
And it can be taken by a combined team of U.S. Navy SEALs and Marines. Kharg is a “textbook” objective for a SEAL-Marine maritime operation. Now is the time to seize Kharg Island. Or at least as soon as a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) can arrive in two or three weeks.
The ‘Seize Kharg’ Play
This play isn’t new. It has been mapped as a strategic option since 1979, after radical Islamist students took American diplomats hostage and President Carter tasked Adm. James “Ace” Lyons to come up with a plan to force their release.
In January 2026, Michael Rubin, a Senior Fellow at AEI, revived the idea of seizing Kharg as a way to avoid bombing Iran. However, we are now clearly past that scenario. I see the play now as a complement to the current bombing campaign as a way to hasten the collapse or surrender of the Islamist regime.
Carter ultimately rejected the Kharg plan, instead executing a horribly failed rescue operation, and Khomeini only released the hostages when Ronald Reagan took office and might have implemented a harsher plan.
However, Lyons’ plan remains relevant today.
Meanwhile, Rubin, according to E&E NEWS, has been in recent contact with Trump officials about seizing Kharg. He said his recommendations have been circulated within the National Security Council (NSC). However, he believes Trump is relying on a small circle of advisers who may not be aware of the island’s strategic importance.
“If they themselves aren’t familiar with Kharg, then it doesn’t matter what the State Department desk or the CIA knows about Iran,” he said. “It’s not going to percolate up.”
Trump’s top advisors need to listen.
Should he take Kharg, Trump can not only ensure the regime can never again pay its bureaucrats, scientists, troops, and thugs, but also that after regime change, the new Iranian regime can finance its own rebuilding.
Kharg Island represents more than a tactical objective. It is the economic artery that keeps Iran’s regime alive. If that artery is cut, the regime’s ability to finance repression at home and aggression abroad could collapse with it. In the next phase of this argument, the question becomes not whether Kharg is strategically valuable — but how such an operation could actually be executed.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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But if that island is to be ‘taken’, it MUST be done BEFORE the oil now there is removed to the mainland.
There is no time to wait!