Skip to main content

← American Soldiers — Articles

Kharg Island and the Uranium Raid: The Ground Missions on the Table

When officials say "no invasion," they are usually telling the truth in a narrow way. Nobody in Washington has proposed marching an army to Tehran. What has been planned, briefed, and nearly approved, again and again since March 2026, are two specific ground missions. Each one would put thousands of American soldiers and Marines on Iranian soil, under Iranian missiles and drones, for days or weeks. Each one has been pushed in public by Israel's prime minister or by American hawks close to the war's Israeli sponsors. And each one, by the accounts of the people who would plan it, could grow into something much larger.

The two missions are:

  • Kharg Island. A small island in the Persian Gulf, about 15 to 21 miles off Iran's coast, that handles roughly 90 percent of Iran's crude oil exports. Seizing it means Marines or paratroopers landing on Iranian territory and holding it.
  • The uranium raid. Iran's stock of enriched uranium, about 440 kilograms (roughly 970 pounds) enriched to 60 percent, lies buried in tunnels at Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow after the June 2025 strikes. "Enriched" uranium has been processed to concentrate the isotope that can fuel a reactor or, at about 90 percent, a bomb. Getting it out means troops holding perimeters around buried nuclear sites while engineers dig.

This page explains both missions, who pushed them, how close they came, and why they matter to an American family. Evidence rating: CONFIRMED that both missions were planned and briefed to the president (CBS, Axios, the Washington Post, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and the White House's own statement to Military Times). STRONG that the uranium raid came within days of approval in May 2026 and remains on the table.

Why the air war leads here​

The bombing that began on 28 February 2026 destroyed a great deal. It could not do two things. It could not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow sea lane at the mouth of the Persian Gulf that Iran closed to most shipping, and it could not reach the uranium buried under the rubble of the June 2025 strikes. Experts told the BBC in March that securing the uranium "could not be done without ground forces" (BBC, 31 March 2026). Both unfinished goals point at the ground. That is the logic explained on Air War Is Not Enough, and these two missions are where it lands.

Kharg Island: the oil island​

Israeli papers laid out the Kharg plan before most Americans heard of the island. On 19 March 2026 Israel Hayom reported that the options before Trump included "deploying ground forces along Iran's coastline" and "sending troops to Kharg Island," the departure point for about 90 percent of Iran's oil exports (Israel Hayom). Three days later the Jerusalem Post's Amichai Stein reported that senior US officials had told counterparts in Israel and other countries that there might be no alternative to a US ground operation to seize the island (Jerusalem Post, 22 March 2026). Israel's Channel 13 reported that the Pentagon had "finished drafting the operational plans for a ground invasion of Iran," and that American planners judged Kharg "a relatively easy mission" because every military target on the island had already been bombed (Channel 13, 22 March 2026).

On 24 March, Ynetnews, citing the New York Times, reported that one option was the 82nd Airborne's Immediate Response Force, "a roughly 3,000-soldier brigade capable of deploying within 18 hours," with about 2,500 Marines of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit as a second force (Ynetnews). Two days later Axios listed "invade or blockade Kharg Island" as the first of four options for a "final blow" (Times of Israel, 26 March 2026).

President Trump spoke about it in his own words. To the Financial Times, as the Associated Press reported: "Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don't. We have a lot of options." Holding it "would also mean we had to be there (on Kharg Island) for a while." And: "I don't think they have any defense. We could take it very easily" (AP, 31 March 2026). On 11 June, with the ceasefire fraying, he posted that the United States would "take Kharg Island" in "the not too distant future," and the White House told Military Times that "all military options remain available to the president, including scenarios involving a significant number of ground forces occupying Kharg Island" (Military Times, 11 June 2026). In mid-July he told Fox: "If we wear them down hard enough and deep enough, I'll do it" (Ynetnews, 15 July 2026).

The loudest American voice for the landing was Senator Lindsey Graham, a leading ally of Israel's government in the Senate. As Harrison Mann reported in Responsible Statecraft, Graham exhorted the president in public: "Mr. President: Take Kharg Island [and] this war is over!" (Responsible Statecraft, 19 March 2026). Three weeks earlier, on 1 March, the same senator had told NBC's Meet the Press, as Newsweek reported: "There will be no American boots on the ground. This is not Iraq."

Go deeper: Kharg Island: the landing plan, the forces, and the trap

The uranium raid: "Essentially, we'd have to invade"​

The uranium mission is the one Israel's prime minister asked for on American television. On CBS's 60 Minutes on 10 May 2026, Benjamin Netanyahu said the war was "not over, because there's still nuclear material, enriched uranium that has to be taken out of Iran." Asked how: "You go in, and you take it out." Asked whose special forces: "Well, I'm not gonna talk about military means, but the pres-- what President Trump has said to me, 'I want to go in there.' and I think it can be done physically" (CBS News transcript). Middle East Eye headlined it "Netanyahu hints at US troop deployment against Iran." Israel had already said it would not send its own infantry into Iran (see Israel Keeps Its Infantry Home). The people who would "go in" were Americans.

The size of the mission was clear from the start. The Wall Street Journal, retold by the Times of Israel on 16 March, called it potentially "the largest special forces operation in history," needing "upward of 1,000 military personnel" at a single site: combat troops on a perimeter, engineers digging through rubble and clearing booby traps, and an airfield, built on the spot if necessary, to fly the material out (Times of Israel). Former National Security Council official Richard Nephew told the Journal "more than a thousand personnel would be needed at one site" (Globes, 21 March 2026). By 30 March the Journal reported that Trump was weighing an operation to extract "nearly 1,000 pounds of uranium" that "would likely put American forces inside the country for days or longer" (Ynet).

Then it nearly happened. CNN reported on 12 June that Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, left a NATO meeting in Brussels and flew to US Central Command in Tampa on 19 May to be briefed in person on plans to send ground troops into Iran and take the uranium by force, and that the urgency "suggested the administration had come very close to approving" it. Trump paused it after warnings of Iranian retaliation, a longer war, and significant American casualties. One source told CNN: "It would be insanely difficult to fish through those tunnels and all the barrels. We'd have to set up a massive presence. Essentially, we'd have to invade." Commanders rated the risk to special operations forces "High to Extreme" (CNN, 12 June 2026). Five Israeli outlets carried the story within a day: Ynetnews, Israel National News, Walla, the Jerusalem Post, and Enlace Judío.

The pause was not a cancellation. On 25 July the New York Post reported that the operation "would involve thousands of ground troops storming Iran's nuclear facilities — navigating boobytraps, utilizing construction crews, and maintaining a large defensive blocking force surrounding the sites," and Joseph Rodgers of CSIS said: "I hate to say it, but I think the most likely way to get rid of Iran's nuclear material, at least what they currently have, is a military operation because the negotiations aren't going anywhere fast" (i24NEWS; Ynetnews).

Go deeper: The uranium seizure raid: what it would take · May–June 2026: the raid that was paused, not cancelled

Who pushed, and who pays​

Read the record in one line. Israel's former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, told Israeli radio in June that a joint seizure of the uranium "should have been done" (Jerusalem Post). Israel's prime minister said "You go in, and you take it out" and quoted Trump saying "I want to go in there." The Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), a Washington think tank that argues for close US military ties with Israel, published a retired admiral's walk-through of "hundreds of U.S. Marines coming ashore" on Kharg (JINSA, 15 July 2026). Commentator Mark Levin demanded ground troops: "We've got to get the uranium." And Israel's own Channel 12 reported that Israeli soldiers would not take part on the ground.

The people who would carry out either mission are American Marines, paratroopers, Rangers, SEALs, and engineers. The analysts who studied the missions agree on what happens to them after they land. Retired Army Major Harrison Mann: "For the troops unlucky enough to receive orders to take Kharg, the operation would land somewhere between a suicide mission and a self-imposed hostage crisis." Former Pentagon official Bilal Saab: sending the Marines "is as reckless as it is counterproductive" (War on the Rocks). Former national counterterrorism director Joe Kent, as quoted in a Reddit comment: it "would essentially be giving Iran a bunch of hostages on an island that they could barrage with drones and missiles." And Iran's parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said Iran's men were "waiting for the arrival of the American soldiers on the ground to set them on fire" (BBC).

A trapped force invites a rescue force. A rescue force invites a larger war. That is how a "limited" island seizure becomes the ground war that the troop math says the United States cannot fight with volunteers.

"Not boots on the ground"​

The last move is the word game. Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas argued on CNN that Marines on Kharg would not count: "The island is not, in my opinion, boots on the ground in combat circumstances" (Politico, 17 March 2026). A senior US official told Axios, "Boots on the ground for Trump is not the same as what it means for the media" (All Israel News, 8 March 2026). An Iranian island is Iranian soil. A nuclear site 300 miles inland at Isfahan, Iran's third-largest city, is Iranian soil. When the promise "no boots on the ground" is redefined so that these missions do not count, the promise protects no one. See No Boots on the Ground for the full record of the promise.

The timeline​

DateWhat happenedSource
30 Jan 2026NYT, via Ynet: options shown to Trump include secret US commando raids on Iranian nuclear sitesYnet
8 Mar 2026Axios, via All Israel News: US and Israel weigh special-forces op for the uraniumAll Israel News
16 Mar 2026WSJ, via Times of Israel: "largest special forces operation in history"Times of Israel
19–24 Mar 2026Reuters, NYT, Israeli press: ground forces for Kharg, the coast, and the uraniumHaaretz, Ynetnews
26 Mar 2026Axios: "invade or blockade Kharg Island" among four "final blow" options; uranium ground plans preparedTimes of Israel
30 Mar 2026WSJ: Trump weighs extracting "nearly 1,000 pounds" of uraniumYnet
10 May 2026Netanyahu on 60 Minutes: "You go in, and you take it out"CBS
19 May 2026Caine flies from Brussels to Tampa for the raid briefingCNN
4 Jun 2026Trump: the job means "you have to be there for two weeks"Times of Israel
11 Jun 2026White House: options include "a significant number of ground forces occupying Kharg Island"Military Times
15 Jul 2026Situation Room meeting on seizing Kharg and Hormuz territory "using U.S. troops"JINSA / Fox
25 Jul 2026NY Post: "thousands of ground troops storming Iran's nuclear facilities"i24NEWS
Aug 2026WSJ, via JPost: Trump briefed on "deploying ground troops to capture Iranian islands near the Strait of Hormuz"Jerusalem Post

Go deeper​

The articles on this page's shelf​

Status: Donald Trump is alive. Benjamin Netanyahu is alive. Dan Caine is alive. Yoav Gallant is alive. Joseph Rodgers is alive. Harrison Mann is alive. Bilal Saab is alive. Joe Kent is alive. Pete Sessions is alive. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is alive.

Sources​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

Last updated on