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    Trump glaubt, dass diese Insel der Schlüssel zum Iran ist – sein Wagnis wird tödlich sein

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    1. theipaper on

      Full article: Donald Trump’s threats to bomb oil sites on Iran’s strategic Kharg Island hint at a desperate gamble that would plunge the world into further instability as [speculation grows of a US ground operation](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/trumps-risky-daring-plan-ground-operations-iran-4285423?ico=in-line_link).

      The [US President](https://inews.co.uk/topic/donald-trump?srsltid=AfmBOoqCg2Xyf1CWiXYSqkrmvYOncNg0RAO4eTE9ARd7vWg8eZMfdFSP&ico=in-line_link) said strikes against military targets on the island on Friday had “totally demolished” most of the five-mile isle, which sits about 15 miles (24 km) off Iran’s coastline.

      However, Trump said: “We may hit it a few more times just for fun”, warning that the island’s oil infrastructure was not off the table.

      He wrote on social media: “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.”

      US Central Command said it had hit more than 90 sites on Kharg, including naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers and other military targets.

      Iran has played down the extent of the damage on the island and vowed to retaliate against the US for the attack on the small but vital strip of land in the Persian Gulf.

      # Why Kharg could be the key to victory

      Kharg handles roughly 90 per cent of Iran’s 1.7 million barrels of crude exports per day, making it one of the country’s most important – and vulnerable – targets. Until Friday, the island had remained untouched by the war.

      Dan Marks, research fellow in energy security at the Royal United Services Institute in London, says: “It’s hard to see how [strikes on Kharg Island] will help the situation the US is in.”

      Instead, Marks said it hinted at “desperation” on the part of the US to “find a point of leverage” to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a strategically significant waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passes.

      Depriving the Iranian regime of oil revenue would severely harm its ability to pay the salaries of its [Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps](https://inews.co.uk/topic/islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps?srsltid=AfmBOorPiAmUP9Bbx-9ZGv2brlglHgbeD7zBrhSWzJsMAyeXahwtkk_e&ico=in-line_link) (IRGC), which prop up the regime and would further harm the country’s already devastated economy.

      Controlling the island would give the US enormous leverage over any negotiations on ending the war, as well as its other demands including over its nuclear programme and terror networks.

      However, the impact of striking Iranian oil infrastructure on Kharg would not necessarily mean the Iranian regime crumbles immediately, said Marks. It would be a major long-term problem for Iran if it could not export oil. “But that’s not really a problem that’s going to come up for a while,” he said.

      Furthermore, destroying the oil infrastructure on Kharg would remove more oil from the global market, pushing prices even higher after they hit a four-year high last week at nearly $120 (£91) a barrel. Before the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, oil had been trading at around $71 (£54) a barrel.

      The White House would be reluctant to add further pressure, with prices threatening to surge even higher thanks to escalating Iranian attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf.

      JP Morgan’s global commodity research team has warned that hitting Kharg would “immediately halt the bulk of Iran’s crude exports, likely triggering severe retaliation in the Strait of Hormuz or against regional energy infrastructure”.

      The disruption to the world economy could get much worse in the next few weeks, Marks said. “So far, markets have been relatively relaxed. Prices have gone up but we’re not at record prices.

      “A lot of that is the belief that the US has control of the situation and can de-escalate, but I think there are questions about that, especially if they strike Iranian oil and gas infrastructure,” he said.

      “Closing the Strait is such a massive thing that it’s simply irreplaceable. I mean, you just cannot replace that oil in the global market over any time period.

      “If you then start tit for tat on energy infrastructure in the region, then you prolong that. So it becomes even harder because you’ve got to repair all of that stuff.”

    4. bygonecenarion on

      Presidents of both parties for decades have said that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. A country whose motto is „Death to America“ and was clearly going for a nuke regardless of what they were saying or doing publicly (as evidenced in the archives Israel captured in 2018).

      Clinton didn’t go harder in the 90s to stop North Korea from getting one, and now that’s hanging over all of Asia. If the US continued to just ask the mullahs nicely to stop (like Spain thinks), they’d eventually end up getting one anyway too, and then the world would have that to deal with. Trump would doubtless be criticized for not taking action.

      He took the biggest gamble of his political career by launching these attacks, and gave Iran every opportunity (before and after the June attack) to give up pursuit of a nuke peacefully, and they refused to yield an inch in negotiations – when the armadas were literally lining up on their doorstep. And once attacked, their response included shooting at their regional neighbors (hotels) who weren’t even assisting in the attack. And for good measure, they continue to launch missiles at unarmed commercial vessels. How is it not glaringly obvious these people are a threat to almost everyone and need to go?

      Can we please stop framing this whole situation like it was a warmongering bungle by the Trump admin? That’s disingenuous and adds nothing to discussion. The US and Israel are finally taking action to stop a theocratic dictatorship from getting the bomb – a regime that has no issue gunning down tens of thousands of its own citizens to hang on to power. Imagine what they’re willing to do to their enemies.

    5. PausedForVolatility on

      It’s part of the moving goalposts of this war and it’s why none of the previous admins wanted to go into Iran.

      When this started, it was “we gotta go hot because Iran will retaliate when Israel strikes, so we’re going to knock them out in one overwhelming blow.” Nope, Iran built in strategies for exactly this scenario. Then it was “precision strikes will topple the regime and the Iranian people will rise up.” Nope. People generally don’t want to be associated with people who fling cruise missiles at schools. Then it was “the USN will escort tankers to keep the Strait open.” Nope, negotiations with Iran directly do that better. Now it’s “just an itsy-bitsy ground op, guys, we swear it’s the silver bullet for realsies this time.”

      Each individual step *sounds* plausible. Each individual step *does* have a decent argument in support of it, when you view things in a vacuum. And this is exactly how mission creep happens. There will be something following Kharg that warrants more direct involvement. What is that? No idea, but you don’t solicit troops from inland Kurdish forces to take an island. You do that when you expect the conflict to widen.

    6. faceintheblue on

      Let’s be honest. Trump doesn’t think with this kind of granularity about almost anything. You think he knows Iranian geography at this level? Someone has presented him with a list of options, and he’s gravitated to this one, possibly for as simple a reason as he can pronounce the name of the place, and a small island sounds doable now that people are starting to walk him through what boots on the ground would actually look like.

      He’s not thinking about anything beyond the next news cycle. Don’t give him credit for a deep understanding of what’s going on here. We’ve fallen into a weird position where because he’s the president, we assume there’s a plan in place. There’s not. He got a good press cycle out of Venezuela, so he tried to get the same out of Iran. That’s as deep as this war goes.

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