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Seizing Iran's 'crown jewel' would be a suicide mission

On 19 March 2026, Responsible Statecraft, an American foreign-policy magazine, published Seizing Iran's 'crown jewel' would be a suicide mission. Harrison Mann, a retired US Army major who wrote the column, says President Donald Trump was reportedly considering a landing on Kharg Island to grab Iran's oil exports. An American family should care because Mann's subject is thousands of US troops going onto Iranian land, and his argument is that they could be trapped there.

Evidence rating: MODERATE. A retired US Army major, writing under his own name, reports that a seizure is under discussion. The lines from Senator Graham and Representative Sessions are quoted as he gives them.

What the article says

Mann writes that Kharg Island holds a terminal that handles about 90 percent of Iran's oil exports. Trump, he writes, has called the island Iran's crown jewel. After US bombs hit the island but spared the oil gear, Mann writes, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina exhorted the president in public: "Mr. President: Take Kharg Island [and] this war is over!" Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, Mann writes, floated the job as a mission for a Marine expeditionary unit then sailing toward the region. A Marine expeditionary unit is a ship-based Marine force built to put troops ashore quickly. Mann also writes that Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has called taking the island a no-brainer and has pitched the idea to White House officials.

Mann says the pitch is simple. US troops would land by parachute, by helicopter, or from the sea, hold the oil, and force Iran to give in. He says that will not work. He writes that Iran's leaders are already in a war they treat as a fight for survival, so losing one oil terminal is weak leverage. He writes that cutting soldiers' pay would not make them abandon their posts.

The landing itself, he argues, would be worse for the Americans sent to do it.

"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."

Harrison Mann, Responsible Statecraft, 19 March 2026.

Mann writes that the island is about five miles long, that people live there, and that the force would have to hold it with no surprise. For that, he writes, the United States would need thousands of troops. He names units that could be used, including a Marine battalion landing team of about 1,200, a ready brigade of the 82nd Airborne, and other fast units. He writes that, in theory, more than 10,000 troops could be available in the coming weeks, and that there had been no public talk yet of sending a force that large. He writes that a beach landing, a helicopter landing, and a parachute drop would each leave those troops within reach of Iranian missiles, drones, and artillery, about 15 miles off Iran's coast and far inside the Persian Gulf. He writes that about 20,000 people live on the island, citing The Jerusalem Post, and that they would not welcome a foreign force.

If the troops did take the oil gear, Mann writes, they would then sit in a small area where getting them off again could become the crisis. He writes that Iranian commanders might even let them land and then block a rescue. He also writes that troops stuck on the island could be used as a reason to send still more Americans onto the Iranian mainland. He calls a full invasion no longer unthinkable, and he asks Congress not to fund a longer war. That is his argument.

Mann adds that the idea is old. He writes that President Jimmy Carter weighed bombing or seizing Kharg during the 1979 hostage crisis and did not do it, and that Trump himself talked about seizing the island in 1988 while promoting a book.

What other reporting and posts add

Graham before and after. Sen. Lindsey Graham, quoted here urging "Take Kharg Island," had told NBC's Meet the Press on 1 March, as Newsweek reported: "There will be no American boots on the ground. This is not Iraq. This is not Germany. This is not Japan." Newsweek, 2 March 2026. (capture: twitter/t52__v618.md) On X he wrote, as a 19 March summary quoted: "He who controls Kharg Island, controls the destiny of this war. Semper Fi." @ComptonMadeMe, 19 March 2026. (capture: twitter/t49__v579.md) Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) later said on CNN, per LBC: "I don't think Lindsey Graham, for all of that hubris, has thought through or wargamed the consequences of us taking Kharg Island." LBC, 27 March 2026. (capture: twitter/t56__v668.md)

Mann's "hostage crisis" warning, from Iran's side. Former Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted by the World Socialist Web Site in July saying that if US forces seize Iranian territory, Iran should storm a US base "through a combined helicopter-borne and ground assault" and take American soldiers hostage. WSWS, 16 July 2026. (capture: twitter/t56__v668.md) 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"; see a241.

The plan stayed alive. Axios reported a week after this column that one Pentagon option was to "invade or blockade Kharg Island." The Independent, 26 March 2026. (capture: twitter/t56__v668.md) In June, a leaked Army order reported by Ken Klippenstein sent a company of the 82nd Airborne to Israel, tied per an X summary to planning "for seizing Iranian-controlled Kharg Island." X news summary, 8 June 2026. (capture: twitter/t07__v083.md)

What it shows

Before any order, the case for the landing was being made in public by an American senator: "Mr. President: Take Kharg Island [and] this war is over!" On 1 March the same senator had said, "There will be no American boots on the ground." Mann, a retired Army intelligence officer, describes what the landing means for the Americans sent: thousands of troops on a five-mile island within reach of Iranian missiles, drones, and artillery, "somewhere between a suicide mission and a self-imposed hostage crisis," and a reason to send still more Americans onto the mainland.

That is the ladder from "no boots" to a ground war. By June a leaked order tied a company of the 82nd Airborne sent to Israel to planning "for seizing Iranian-controlled Kharg Island." See Kharg Island and the Uranium Raid and No Boots on the Ground.

Check it yourself

Seizing Iran's 'crown jewel' would be a suicide mission, Harrison Mann, Responsible Statecraft, 19 March 2026. No second source was opened for this page.

Status: Donald Trump is alive.

Status: Lindsey Graham: Unknown (several July 2026 posts and one Tablet Magazine column report his death; not confirmed by a primary source in this record).

Status: Pete Sessions is alive.

Status: Michael Rubin is alive.

For a newcomer: the United States and Israel began bombing Iran on 28 February 2026. Kharg Island is a small island about 25 kilometers (15 miles) off Iran's coast where most of Iran's crude oil is loaded onto tankers; US bombs had hit its defenses but spared the oil equipment. Responsible Statecraft is the online magazine of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington think tank founded in 2019 that argues for military restraint and against new wars. Harrison Mann is a retired Army major who worked in military intelligence.

Research captures: twitter/t52__v618.md, twitter/t49__v579.md, twitter/t56__v668.md, twitter/t07__v083.md

Last Updated: 2026-09-26