Kharg Island Stratagem

The Iranian Kharg island is a coral outcrop in the Persian Gulf, 25 kilometers off mainland Iran. It is now the cynosure and flashpoint of the ensuing battle of wits between the seemingly irrepressible Iranians, and the increasingly frustrated US-Israeli forces. Like most things in civilisational Iran, the Kharg island has a recorded antiquity and plurality that dates back to the Achaemenid-era (550–330 BCE) with a Christian monastery (7th Century), Zoroastrian burial site, a Mir Mohammed Shrine, and a tumultuously wounded history of having passed hands ~ from the empires of Persia to Arab lands, from the Portuguese to the Dutch and British, and finally back to the Iranians. Legendary Iranian writer Jalal Al-e-Ahmad had once called this relatively isolated and forgotten 22-square kilometer island the “Orphan pearl of the Persian Gulf”.

It later acquired more sinister perceptions after becoming a penal exile for political opponents, and later still, as the “Forbidden Island” owing to carefully restricted entry only for those with official security clearances by the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). But today the strategic geography (linking the global energy system with the passageway of the Strait of Hormuz) and proximity to major offshore facilities has made it the undisputed backbone of the Iranian economy and survival. Kharg island now processes 90 per cent of Iran’s total oil exports, handling approximately 950 million barrels every year. At one point, it had become the world’s largest oil shipment terminal. As the backbone of Iran’s national revenue source through the oil export system, Kharg Island is critical to the functioning of the Iranian sovereign state.

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Geographical isolation and disproportionate economic dependence on Kharg island for the Iranians makes it a highly exposed node for the Ayatollah regime in Tehran. Kharg island also has a proven wartime vulnerability, as it was repeatedly attacked by the Iraqi forces in the decade long Iran-Iraq war. This underlying vulnerability has afforded the clearly desperate American President, Donald Trump, a chance to threaten attacking Kharg island as a decisive move. While it did attack Kharg island days earlier and claimed to have “totally obliterated” every military target there, the oil infrastructure was left undestroyed. However, Trump’s sabre-rattling on a potential attack on Kharg led him to state, “For reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision”.

Prior experience of combat commitments in recent theatres like Afghanistan (where the US was stuck in the “longest war” for nearly 20 years) leads Trump to acknowledge that holding physical presence with American boots-on-ground would entail, “to be there [in Kharg Island] for a while”. Towards posturing on the same, the US Central Command has sent 3,500 US sailors and marines by the warship USS Tripoli. Theoretically, it could afford a launching beachhead to carry out surgical strikes into the Iranian mainland. But practically, the storming of Kharg island may be easier said than done, as it may not be an easy decision for the US military, the Trump bravado notwithstanding.

What however Trump could do, and has indeed alluded to, is the sheer destruction of the oil infrastructure at the Kharg island by raining bombs and missiles from the safety of distance. However, that is bound to escalate the current conflict to even more dramatic levels with far more debilitating consequences, not just for the Iranians, but for the entirety of the global energy highways. Already the pro-Iran Yemeni Houthis are threatening to target the other vital strait in the region i.e. Bab-al-Mandab to squeeze yet another international oil corridor should the US forces take-over the Kharg island. The Hezbollah in southern Lebanon too have got activated in opening up yet another front for the Israelis, on their northern land borders.

The destruction of Kharg island is bound to further shoot-up the already soaring global oil prices. Then there is a guaranteed reciprocal retaliation by the Iranians on all traversing ships and oil infrastructure of the Arab US-allies in the region. In such desperate times, even civilian facilities like the all-important desalination plants that provide drinking water for millions in the neighbourhood can become par for the course for the cornered Iranians. In such times, any spike in the number of American “body bags” would make such a land occupation of the island extremely unpopular for Trump at home, especially as he had got elected on the campaign promise of not getting embroiled in such militaristic endeavours.

Already the biggest global energy crisis (oil prices have risen by 60 per cent since the start of the war) in decades has started hitting the household bills, production in factories, and an overall sense of security across the world (including the USA). Even the global stock indexes have fallen sharply. There just doesn’t seem to be any upside in the eventuality that the US attacks and holds ground in Kharg island, as threatened. Pressure from staunch US allies in the region like Egypt has started to build. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi beseeched Trump, “Please help us to stop the war, you are capable of it”, and added, “I speak to you in the name of humanity and in the name of everyone who loves peace”. Sisi plainly warned that oil prices could hit an unprecedented and back-breaking $200 per barrel.

Implicit in the plea was the belief that a ground-storming of Kharg island would not end the war as simplistically postulated by Trump, but worsen the portents and possibilities for bloody instability. In the far-fetched scenario of American troops establishing physical presence on Kharg island, the ability to negotiate a withdrawal in exchange for Iranians turning-in their stockpile of enriched uranium, is unlikely. If anything the Iranians would rain their stockpile of munitions on the potentially occupied island that would certainly accelerate the even more damaging asymmetric warfare against American personnel and interests globally. Clearly there are more chances of the situation deteriorating even further, should the Americans attack and try to physically occupy Kharg island ~ not just for Iran, but for the world as well as American lives and interests.

(The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), and former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry)