Skip to main content

← Kharg Island and the Uranium Raid

US considers ground operation to seize Iran's Kharg Island amid tensions, source tells Post

On 22 March 2026, The Jerusalem Post, an Israeli newspaper that publishes in English, ran US considers ground operation to seize Iran's Kharg Island amid tensions, source tells Post. Reporter Amichai Stein wrote that unnamed sources said American officials were discussing a landing to take an Iranian oil island. An American family should care because the subject is US Marines going onto Iranian land, not only bombs from airplanes.

Background for new readers: On 28 February 2026 the United States and Israel began a joint air war on Iran. The Pentagon calls its part Operation Epic Fury; Israel calls its part Operation Roaring Lion. It came eight months after a shorter war in June 2025, when US bombers hit Iran's nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. The question running through this section is whether the air war turns into American soldiers fighting on Iranian soil. This article is filed under Kharg Island and the Uranium Raid; the full article index lists every article on this shelf.

Evidence rating: MODERATE. The central claim, that senior US officials told counterparts in Israel and elsewhere a ground operation to seize Kharg Island might be unavoidable, rests on two unnamed sources reported by the Post's named correspondent. A US official, also unnamed, confirmed that the Marine deployment had been accelerated.

What the article says​

Stein wrote that senior US officials had recently told counterparts in Israel and in other countries that there might be no alternative but for the United States to launch a ground operation to seize Kharg Island. Kharg Island is Iran's main oil-export island in the Persian Gulf. The article says 90 percent of the crude shipped from there goes to China. The reason Stein gives for the talks is to make Iran stop blocking ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow sea lane that tankers use to leave the Persian Gulf.

The article says a US official confirmed a narrower fact to the Post: the military had sped up sending thousands of Marines and Navy sailors to the Middle East. Stein names the USS Boxer group. That is a set of ships built to put Marines ashore. He lists the assault ship USS Boxer and the transport docks USS Portland and USS Comstock. He writes that the three ships carry about 4,500 Marines and other combat personnel.

"the US military has accelerated the deployment of thousands of Marines and Navy personnel to the Middle East."

A US official, as quoted by Amichai Stein, The Jerusalem Post, 22 March 2026.

The article also says that about a week and a half earlier the United States had struck military targets on the island. It says President Donald Trump posted that those military targets had been destroyed, that he had not taken down the oil infrastructure then, and that he would reconsider if Iran kept blocking the strait. It says that on Saturday he threatened to hit Iranian power plants if the blockade was not lifted. Stein then writes that Iran's response made a voluntary end to the blockade unlikely, and that the working assumption was that a military operation would be needed to keep the strait open. That last step is the newspaper's conclusion.

What other reporting adds​

Why Kharg. The Telegraph, citing multiple US officials who spoke to Reuters, reported the same week that one option was sending ground troops to Kharg Island, "which is responsible for 90 per cent of Iran's oil exports" (The Telegraph, 20 March 2026; research capture: twitter/t13__v147.md).

Trump on how long it would take. A week later Trump told the Financial Times, as a digest of that interview quoted him: "Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don't. We have a lot of options... It would also mean we had to be there [in Kharg Island] for a while." (@ZackEiseman on X, 30 March 2026, quoting the FT; the FT article was not opened; research capture: twitter/t49__v587.md).

Warnings about holding an island. Joe Kent, Trump's former counterterrorism director, is quoted in a Reddit comment: "I just think that would be a disaster… It would essentially be giving Iran a bunch of hostages on an island that they could barrage with drones and missiles." (research capture: twitter/t51__v601.md; the original source of that quote was not found). In July, strategist Edward Luttwak argued the opposite, that Trump "refuses to risk deploying even a small number of troops to the desert islands in the Persian Gulf" and should (UnHerd on X, 29 July 2026; research capture: twitter/t50__v593.md). As of the captures, dated 26 September 2026, no landing on Kharg had been reported.

What it shows​

Note who heard it first. Senior US officials told their counterparts in Israel, among others, that the United States might have no alternative to a ground operation to seize an Iranian island, and an Israeli paper reported it. At the same time the Boxer group, three ships carrying about 4,500 Marines and other combat personnel, was sped toward the region. A week later Trump told the Financial Times that taking Kharg "would also mean we had to be there [in Kharg Island] for a while."

The landing force in every version is American. The same month, Israel's Channel 12 reported that Israeli infantry would not join a US ground operation. See Kharg Island and the Uranium Raid and The Buildup.

Check it yourself​

Status: Donald Trump is alive.

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

Last updated on