The greatest danger of the proposed Kharg Island operation may not be the assault itself but what comes after it succeeds. If Marines land on the island and Iran responds with a precision strike that inflicts heavy casualties, President Trump would face a choice with no good options: escalate into a grinding occupation or withdraw in what would amount to a strategic humiliation.
Bilal Y. Saab, who served as a Pentagon official during Trump's first term, has laid out this dilemma in a detailed analysis published by "Hvylya." Seizing the island is one thing, he argues; holding it under continuous enemy fire is something else entirely, and sustainment operations would grow more complicated the longer U.S. forces remain.
The threat is not hypothetical. Iran retains significant precision-guided missile capabilities on the mainland, within easy striking distance of the island. Tehran does not need to resort to a scorched-earth bombardment of its own infrastructure — it has enough GPS-guided weapons to target American personnel specifically while preserving the oil facilities it would want to rebuild after the war.
Saab warns that staying after a deadly attack and sending reinforcements would guarantee mission creep — an open-ended military commitment with no clear exit. Withdrawing, on the other hand, would be both politically suicidal at home and strategically disastrous abroad, signaling to Iran and other adversaries that American resolve has limits that can be tested with a single well-placed strike.
The underlying problem, in Saab's assessment, is that Trump's handling of the war rests on a fundamental miscalculation about the Iranian regime. Tehran views this conflict as existential and, rightly or wrongly, believes it is winning. Its appetite for concessions is shrinking, not growing — making any operation premised on forcing Iranian capitulation a dangerous bet with American lives.
Earlier, "Hvylya" explored why the U.S. defense industry sits idle despite an active war, unable to surge production when it matters most.