The repercussions of Iran’s choke hold on the strait are not limited to the gas pump and jet fuel. Hundreds of millions of people, and entire industries, from the Persian Gulf to Asia, have been affected by industry shutdowns, rising food and heating costs stemming from higher energy prices, and fuel shortages. Companies that export goods to, or import them from, the Middle East are crippled, as global supply chains are interrupted. The strait is also a crucial gateway for nitrogen-based fertilizer components, such as urea and ammonia. As a result of the disruption, their prices have spiked, deepening food insecurity in vulnerable countries and influencing spring-planting decisions by farmers in the U.S. Even the U.S. defense industry may be affected: roughly half the global trade of sulfur—a mineral that’s key not only to sustaining America’s electrical grid but to building semiconductors in precision-guided munitions, and to repairing military equipment—flows through the strait.
“The main question still lying in front of us is, will President Trump use boots on the ground and prolong the war to try to open the strait?” Danny Citrinowicz, a Middle East expert at the Institute for National Security Studies, in Tel Aviv, told me. “Or will he stop, declare victory, and return to dealing with Cuba or China, or whatever else?” When I asked what Trump could do to bring down climbing gas and energy costs, Citrinowicz replied, “There are no good options whatsoever, unfortunately.” The South Pars strikes showed that “you cannot attack infrastructure in Iran to force them to open the strait. This is not going to happen.” Trump, he added, “doesn’t understand anything about Iranians. It is what it is.”
Despite Trump’s noise about negotiations, his objectives are far from clear, whether he’s leaning toward escalating the war, exiting by declaring victory, negotiating with Iran, or staying the course with aerial strikes. His messaging has been inconsistent; his goals shift nearly every day. Only three days before his ultimatum to Iran, after Israel’s assault on South Pars, Trump said that the U.S. “knew nothing about this particular attack,” and warned Israel not to target the area again if it wanted to avoid another escalation. Yet Shapiro and other analysts told me that the U.S. and Israel have been closely coördinated on military targeting, and Trump likely knew about, and even approved, the South Pars strikes, but didn’t expect Iran’s strong response, or the harm to the global economy. Even as Trump sought, at least publicly, to de-escalate the war, Israel and Iran weren’t listening. On Tuesday, after dozens of tit-for-tat strikes between the two countries, oil prices climbed again. And Trump’s recent actions suggest that the U.S. is preparing for a longer war. The Pentagon has asked for two hundred billion dollars in additional funds, and the U.S. military has announced plans to move roughly twenty-five hundred combat soldiers from the Indo-Pacific region to the Middle East. Another twenty-five hundred marines are expected to be deployed next month. Military analysts predict that the marines could be used to open a new phase in the conflict, launching raids and seizing control of several strategic Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf that are vital to Iran’s oil production. The biggest target is Kharg Island, the main export hub through which Iran moves ninety per cent of its oil. In 1988, during the Iran-Iraq War, Trump, then a New York real-estate mogul, told the Guardian, “I’d be harsh on Iran. They’ve been beating us psychologically, making us look like a bunch of fools. One bullet shot at one of our men or ships, and I’d do a number on Kharg Island. I’d go in and take it.” Now several of Trump’s closest advisers have said that Kharg is the key to shortening the war and breaking Iran’s stranglehold on the strait. “If Iran loses control or the ability to operate its oil infrastructure from Kharg Island, its economy is annihilated,” the Republican senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, wrote on X. “He who controls Kharg Island, controls the destiny of this war.”
A ground invasion of Kharg and the surrounding islands is certain to escalate the conflict, further driving up oil prices and, most likely, increasing the number of U.S. casualties, in a war that is already unpopular with many Americans. The first obstacle for the marines would be getting their ships—which would be carrying combat troops, helicopters, fighter jets, and amphibious assault vehicles—to successfully land on the islands. Geography works against them: Iran’s side of the strait is rugged and mountainous. Iranian forces could rain missiles and drones on U.S. ships from high, hard-to-detect vantage points, allowing only a few seconds to respond. Then, if the marines managed to seize Kharg, holding it would pose various challenges. They could face daily barrages of missiles fired from the mainland, in addition to drone strikes and attacks from Revolutionary Guard troops on the island. “There’s just a lot of threats here,” Pape, the University of Chicago professor, said. “You’re going to have multiple clusters of hornets’ nests.” And although the Iranians will have varying levels of success, Pape added, “they only need a few per cent of their attacks to actually hit, and that will be painful. We’ll basically have to be sitting ducks.”
