This is part of the bigger picture of the Midterms. We don’t want IRGC or China in Venezuela. We don’t want China in Greenland: we should keep China from establishing a trade route from India through the Middle East to Africa. We want a free independent Iran. We shouldn’t be flippant. The long game will get US so much farther.
How do WTP reach our leaders. I know they’re working on the save act. MAGAs are loyal but sometimes robotic. All of our opinions are valuable. Could you and also the Carolina Journal and National Review do open letters from consolidated Chats with signatures?
This makes damned good sense. The regime can implode or actually starve to death. The worst case scenario is post-mullah takeover by even more destructive radicals or warlords. And that would be bad for the citizens of Iran and less bad for everyone else. Hormuz would reopen and business as usual could go on. Bankruptcy in Iran will prevent purchase of ballistics. Also wish that they would freeze assets that are being laundered through allied banks. Just to make the rats leaving the ship uncomfortable.
A new bloodbath or a continuation of the old one? There has been ongoing killing of Americans for years. Bloodbath or slow bleed? Does that make a difference? Regular rocket, suicide bombers and murders in Israel. Slow bleed I guess. Slaughter of Iranian citizens by mullahs for disagreeing. That’s a bloodbath and it will not stop until everyone puts on the hijab and closes their mouth, or until the regime goes away. Anyone recall gassing the citizens in Syria? No blood. Just death. I agree with you that there is no bloodless way to change things and I regret it. I just can’t agree to let it continue status quo. Thank you for being concerned with loss of life. Lucky for us that others have to make the brutal decisions. We can just sit and deliver opinion.
The seizure of Kharg Island should’ve been a Day 1 objective to coincide with the targeted assassinations and the initial blitz before the regime knew what hit it and could regain its footing.
It's a reasonable thought. But allowing Iran to load it up with soldiers that we could blockade and siege might be easier and safer for us. Plus, once they get hungry enough, they'll probably frag their commanders and surrender.
Wow, Mr. Cordle. That ‘s a lot to digest. Seizing Kharg Island sounds like a slam dunk according to your research as outlined in this column, and personally, I have always been in heavy favor of President Trump “finishing the job.” But I would like more follow up regarding China’s potential response to a U.S. control of the Island. If I understand correctly, you theorize that China would just shrug it off and figure out another way to buy the oil they need? Sounds too easy. And nothing about war is easy. What am I missing?
This is an excellent analysis. It really gets to the heart of the issue.
One thing people keep debating is the Strait of Hormuz, but it seems inconceivable to me that the U.S. and Israel wouldn’t already have a plan for that. Any serious battle planning would begin by asking: what are Iran’s strongest leverage points? The Strait of Hormuz would be at the very top of that list.
That’s why I suspect much of what we’re seeing right now — the delays, the extensions, the negotiations — is simply part of the process. Trump has used this approach before: apply pressure, give the other side chances, and then act decisively.
When thousands of Marines and major naval assets move into the region, they’re not there for symbolism. My guess is that the high command in both the U.S. and Israel understands exactly what the strategic endgame looks like.
So while many commentators jump to conclusions that the U.S. might back down, I tend to wait for the final act. Trump has a pattern of moving slowly and then striking hard.
Your article makes a compelling case that cutting the regime’s financial lifeline could be the key turning point.
I fully agree with your views (and that is very rare) and would wish that many other Western countries would become (even unofficially) allies.
However, I would like to share a few stimulating thoughts:
1.China is showing ambivalent behavior, which is probably not coincidental but traditional, if one has read "The Art of War." This ancient strategic thinking is still very much practiced in the modern world, and it is not only timeless but also knows no haste. Nevertheless, "The Art of War" is very effective and still corresponds to Chinese culture.
2.At the same time, one should consider how to compensate for the emerging religious vacuum. Even if it seems marginal or obsolete to us in Western cultures, religious thinking is part of Iranian culture and should be replaced by a constructive religion that is not oriented toward destruction or overpopulation, because otherwise a breeding ground for new radical religious fanatics will emerge.
3.Immediately after the end of hostilities, the civilian population should be offered essential survival goods, with a clear marking (Star of David, American flag, etc.), because it burns itself deeply into the subconscious who honestly helped in difficult times.
The generally positive attitude of the post-war generation in Germany and Austria is mainly due to the relief supplies of beans and peas, as well as the Marshall Plan after the Second World War!
Interesting piece, Mr Cordle. I have felt that the Artesh are positioned as the key moderating factor waiting to see the regime and IRGC degraded before, hopefully, siding with the people. But with new reports of more Iraqi militias moving into Iran, particularly into the oil-rich Khuzestan province, does this alter your assessment at all? Is it foreseeable that the Artesh become expected to fight Iraqi militias?
Iraqi militias moving into Iran is a new development worth watching. Opposition forces are positioning to fill the vacuum if the regime collapses — or to force the collapse themselves. Thanks for flagging this. If confirmed at scale, it could accelerate regime change faster than the financial kill chain alone.
Again, we in the West must understand that the #1 Goal of the Shiaa "True Believer" is Return of the Mahdi --- which will only sequence upon global conflagation. Any remaining IRGC officer remaining will surely detonate the Kharg facility, rather than allow it to fall intact to Infudels
The Mahdist theology exists. It influences some within the IRGC. It does not govern the institution. The proof: the IRGC has had weeks to destroy Kharg and has not. It repaired Kharg every time Saddam bombed it in the 1980s. The men running the regime bought Caribbean passports and Dubai villas — not the behavior of men seeking apocalyptic conflagration. The sabotage risk is real and will be planned for. The word "surely" is not. When the senior commanders are dead and the foot soldiers have not been paid in two months, the theological impulse competes with the survival impulse. In 27 days of evidence, survival is winning.
No need to risk American lives…. Just bomb the ports where the oil is transferred to waiting tankers. No need to destroy all the infrastructure. The regime would lose revenue for several months, and the IRGC might well collapse before they can be repaired.
Kharg Island is 350 miles from the Straits of Hormuz. A B-2 mission ot two would take it out in a night. The waters around it are supposedly mined and we don't have minesweepers. It is totally exposed and Iran still has lots of drones, the small ones evade radar. Sending troppos there makes no sense to me. Then you have to continue to resupply it.
Bomb Kharg Island and bypass it. Get other navies to help open the The Straits of Hormuz and if Iran doesn't - take out their power plants.
Bomb Kharg and you destroy a $35 billion asset, spike oil prices, and give the regime something to rebuild when the war ends. Seize it and the oil keeps flowing, prices come down, and the revenue changes hands permanently. That is the difference between breaking something and owning it. The infrastructure was deliberately preserved on March 13 for exactly this reason.
On your specific objections:
"We don't have minesweepers." The assault is vertical envelopment — Ospreys delivering Marines from beyond mine range to the island's interior. The mines are on the shoreline. The Marines bypass them entirely. The Tripoli ARG includes LPDs with surface connectors for reinforcement after the initial seizure secures the landing zones.
"Iran still has lots of drones, the small ones evade radar." Drone launches are down 95% from Day One. CENTCOM has persistent ISR tracking every defensive preparation on Kharg in real time. The pre-assault strike package eliminates identified positions before the first Marine lands. The former 5th Fleet commander called the mission "absolutely executable."
"You have to resupply it." Kharg is 15 miles offshore. Helicopter resupply range from any platform in the northern Gulf. The Boxer arrives mid-April with full sustainment capability. The 82nd Airborne provides the bridging force. This is not a base at the end of a thousand-mile supply chain. It is an island within rotary-wing range of the fleet.
"Get other navies to help open the Strait." The Strait is opening itself. The man who ran the blockade was killed March 26 along with his entire naval command. One hundred sixteen vessels transited March 1–19. Eight tankers this week. The enforcement mechanism is collapsing because the enforcers are dead.
"B-2 mission would take it out in a night." That is the point. The US can destroy Kharg anytime. Trump said so. The question is why you would destroy an asset you can own. Destruction is a threat. Seizure is a strategy. The threat keeps the regime at the table. The seizure ends the game.
I just see Kharg island as not being the issue but rather Hormuz. You dont need to blow up the whole island - just the infrastructure that loads the tankers. In addition you can always prevent tankers from getting near the place all without troops on the ground
In any case the Saudis have already figured out what to do and that is to switch their oil shipping to the Yanbu on the Red Sea where they are using their 750 mile pipeline to export from there.
You wrote a good article and I hope you are correct.
We won't have long to wait to see how it plays out one way or the other unless the Iranian Regime totally caves in teh negotiations and that doesn't look like it's going to happen.
John, you are asking the right question but framing it backward. Hormuz is the symptom. Kharg is the disease.
Ask yourself why Iran closed the Strait. Not theology. Not pride. Money. The Strait is the chokepoint through which Iran's oil — and everyone else's — reaches the market. Iran closed it to impose cost on the world and protect its revenue. The blockade is not an end. It is an instrument of the regime's financial survival.
Now ask what happens when you remove the regime.
Seize Kharg and the revenue stops. Without revenue the IRGC cannot make payroll. Without payroll the security forces desert. Without security forces the regime falls. What replaces it — a transitional authority, a democratic government, whatever the Iranian people choose — has no interest in blockading the Strait. The opposite. A successor government needs oil revenue more desperately than the IRGC did. It needs to rebuild, feed eighty-eight million people, and establish legitimacy. The first act of any post-regime authority is to open the Strait, restart exports, and get paid. The blockade ends not because the old regime chose to stop — but because the old regime no longer exists and the new one needs the money.
You suggested bombing the loading infrastructure and bypassing the island. That solves Hormuz temporarily. Iran rebuilds the loaders. The revenue restarts. The Strait closes again. You are back where you started — with a destroyed asset, higher oil prices, and a regime that outlasted you. Seizure is permanent. The oil keeps flowing under new control. The revenue funds a transition, not the IRGC.
Trump confirmed the logic yesterday. He compared what the US might do with Iran's oil to the Venezuela model — seizing control of the resource, not destroying it. He extended the energy destruction pause to April 6 while the Tripoli arrives today and the 82nd Airborne deploys. The pause is not indecision. It is the countdown synchronized to force positioning.
On Hormuz specifically — you do not need to force it open. The man who ran the blockade was killed March 26 along with his entire naval command. One hundred sixteen vessels transited March 1–19. Eight tankers this week. The enforcement mechanism is already collapsing. Seize Kharg and the collapse accelerates — because the regime that ordered the blockade can no longer pay the men who enforce it. The Strait opens as the regime dies. Same timeline. Same cause.
The Saudis rerouting to Yanbu confirms the analysis. Every barrel that bypasses Hormuz reduces the leverage the blockade provides — accelerating the regime's financial collapse. Smart move by Riyadh. It means the IRGC's toll corridor is losing customers from both ends — seizure from above, rerouting from below.
Kharg is not about the Strait. Kharg is about regime change. The Strait is the consequence.
John, that is the most honest response in this thread. You asked a hard question, got an answer, and updated. That is rarer than it should be. E-4s who think clearly outrank generals who do not. Thank you for the exchange — it made the argument sharper.
As you make clear in your piece, the Kharg facility is the primary source of revenue for the regime/IRGC. Repairing damage done by a beligerent neighbor is one thing; allowing the same to be exploited by the "Twin Satans", to my mind, is another.
To expect surviving leadership of this messianic blood-cult to suddenly change their world view to realpolitik/ capitalism would be ( an answer to this Christian's prayers ) discounting a belief held so fervently that thousands of jihadis have willingly "suicided" their way to Allah.
For one man, from one of the 31 nodes you mentioned, to send one drone laden with a half kg of nearly fissible material ( a dirty drone ) may be preferable, to that last believer.
Excellent analysis, and your mention of lack of payments "cannot be replaced with ideology alone"--well, I would not fully agree. We have seen that those who believe in the apocalyptic death cult of radical Islam will happily strap bombs to their own children to make them "martyrs." Lack of a paycheck is nothing to them.
Excellent report and writing. Updates due: Shamkhani family (led by Ali the Elimated Shamkhani, a r former Iranian naval officer Mojtaba the Comatose Cardboard Khamenei formerly maintained a global property empire in London, Dubai, Frankfurt, and Mallorca.
Here is the perspective from someone with the background & experience with war.
US General Joseph Votel (retired) - former CENTCOM Commander.
“Both of those things are feasible. Let me just start with Kharg Island. We can put troops on there. We can air mobile them in. We could land them by boat. I guess the comment I have about Kharg is, I’m not sure what the significance is of putting troops there. It’s only about 20 miles off the coast of Iran. So you’re definitely under the threat of their weapon systems. You’d be very, very vulnerable there. And I don’t know that it would give us any particular tactical advantage that we don’t already have or couldn’t get someplace else at an offset location where we have established bases and other things like that. So I’m not sure what the tactical advantage of it is.
I get that it has an informational and kind of messaging advantage against the Iranians that we are on their territory. And it may send a message to the broader energy community that we are safeguarding these vital Iranian infrastructures. That might give them some confidence [but] kind of an odd thing to do. But I just don’t really see the big advantage of going to Kharg.”
Dan, General Votel deserves respect. He commanded CENTCOM. His tactical concerns are legitimate. But read his own words. "I'm not sure what the significance is." "I don't really see the big advantage."
He does not see it because he is looking through the wrong lens.
Votel evaluates Kharg as a military objective and finds no advantage over existing bases. Correct — if the objective is military positioning. It is not. The objective is revenue control. Kharg handles 90% of Iran's crude exports. $31.2 billion annually. The IRGC burns $450 million a week. Seizing Kharg does not give the US a better firing position. It gives the US the regime's bank account. Votel calls that "kind of an odd thing to do." Odd is one word for it. Decisive is another.
The named experts who have studied the financial dimension say go. Jack Keane — four-star general — calls it checkmate. Keith Kellogg — former acting national security adviser — says take it. Mark Cancian — Marine colonel at CSIS — says doable with casualties. A former CENTCOM commander confirmed a battalion could seize it. On the other side: Rear Admiral Montgomery warns the risk exceeds the gain, and an anonymous Substack writer calls it a suicide mission. The named experts sign their work. The anonymous one does not. That distinction matters.
The Beirut comparison — the anonymous writer's centerpiece — fails on every variable. Beirut was a static garrison in an urban war zone surrounded by a hostile population with no military objective and no exit. Kharg is a 25-square-kilometer island with a destroyed garrison, a defined financial objective, a force arrival timeline, and an exit built into the Boxer's mid-April arrival. Invoking Beirut without engaging those differences is not analysis. It is fear dressed as history.
Votel's tactical risks are real. They exist in a context he does not reference. Missile launches down 95%. The naval command killed in a single strike March 26. The defense industrial base destroyed. Persistent ISR tracking every preparation on the island. Ninety military targets destroyed March 13. Non-stealth B-1Bs flying deep into Iranian airspace unchallenged. Votel retired before this war. The Iran he commanded against had a navy, air defenses, a missile arsenal, and a functioning command structure. That Iran no longer exists. Applying his experience to a country that has lost all four is the pre-war fallacy — committed by a man whose experience should have inoculated him against it.
Now the question neither Votel nor you addressed. What happens if the IRGC keeps Kharg.
Iran continues collecting tolls. The Ras Laffan strike already destroyed 17% of Qatar's LNG capacity for three to five years. Iraq is in force majeure. Brent stays above $100. The IRGC payroll continues. The proxy network continues. Rockets into Israel continue. Strikes on US bases continue. The nuclear program reconstitutes within five years under a regime that uses energy infrastructure as a weapon.
That is not a hypothetical. It is the confirmed trajectory without seizure. The anonymous writer calls taking Kharg a suicide mission. Leaving the machine funded is the real one.
The military execution is a vertical assault at low-to-moderate risk. Tripoli in deep water beyond mine range. MV-22s and F-35Bs insert directly. The 31st MEU executes the seizure. The Boxer follows with the 11th MEU — combined force 4,700. Mines matter for the hold phase, not the air seizure. The vulnerability window between Tripoli and Boxer is 11 to 16 days. The reports name it plainly. It cannot be eliminated. It can be compressed.
The post-seizure model is not Iraq. De-Baathification gutted institutions, removed professionals, and created the vacuum that produced ISIS. The model is post-Soviet Eastern Europe — remove the ideological layer, keep the professional structure, rebuild under transitional authority. The oil revenue goes into trust for the Iranian people. The 20,000 workers on Kharg — unpaid for two months — cooperate with the force that restarts their paychecks.
Dan, you opened with "delusional." You closed with a general who admits he does not see the advantage. I have spent sixteen reports documenting exactly what that advantage is. The significance of Kharg is $35 billion a year. It is the regime's last paycheck. It is the difference between a hostile takeover and a forever war.
Votel thinks like a commander. The kill chain is financial. Finance is the lens he does not have. It is the lens you dismissed when you told me my analysis was "suboptimal." Sixteen reports and 100s of sources later, the analysis is on the record. Your critique is a word and a quote from a general who agrees the island can be taken but cannot see why it should be.
This isn’t a video game nor an M&A event. Relying on the Fox News military cabal only further erodes your position.
This is war in which young Americans are having their lives put at risk for a foreign nation’s benefit.
That your “analysis” does not address this is why it has no value except to the neocons and Israeli warmongers.
Tell me why doesn’t your “analysis” include the IDF being part of the assault force?!
Your recitation of what you “believe” to be Iran’s force capability aren’t factual - they are propaganda from either the Trump administration or their masters.
Iran has been under sanctions longer and more extensively than any country on Earth except two, North Korea and Cuba. Yet during all these decades they have built a massive arsenal that has pulverized US military bases, battered the GCC, hit Riyadh today and is plastering Israel on a daily basis.
Your “analysis” ignores these facts and jumps to the “belief” that victory will be “a cake walk” and once achieved the Iranian’s will welcome their conquerors with open arms. You should at least try a new approach as opposed to the same bullshit used to support the neocon Iraq debacle.
I will listen to and give weight to those who know of what they speak because they have lived through it…
“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.” – attributed to William Tecumseh Sherman.
Dan, five rounds now. Each one louder. Each one with less evidence.
I never said "cake walk." Quote me. You cannot because I did not say it. I assigned 75% probability to Kharg seizure and 50% to regime collapse. Those are not certainties. They are weighted assessments against 62 sources. Putting words in my mouth and then attacking the words you invented is a textbook strawman.
"Fox News military cabal." Jack Keane served 37 years and retired as Army Vice Chief of Staff. Kellogg was acting national security adviser. Cancian is a Marine colonel at CSIS. Donegan commanded the 5th Fleet. Dismissing them as a "cabal" does not make their operational assessments disappear. It makes yours look unserious.
"Iran has built a massive arsenal that is plastering Israel daily." Missile launches are down 95% from Day One. That is not my belief. That is the Department of Defense. The arsenal you describe is depleting — every missile fired is one that cannot be replaced because the defense industrial base that manufactured them is destroyed. You are describing Day One capability on Day 28. The trend line is the argument you refuse to read.
"Young Americans having their lives put at risk for a foreign nation's benefit." Thirteen Americans have died. The regime they are fighting had 440 kilograms of enriched uranium seventeen days from breakout — enough for eleven nuclear weapons with missiles that reach Diego Garcia. A nuclear-armed IRGC is not Israel's problem. It is the world's problem. The Strait of Hormuz carries twenty percent of global oil supply. That is not a foreign nation's benefit. That is the American economy's energy supply.
"Why doesn't the IDF join the assault force?" Israel is conducting continuous strikes across Iran — killing commanders, destroying missile sites, degrading air defenses. It killed Tangsiri and the entire IRGC naval command on March 26. It killed Khamenei, Larijani, and Shamkhani. It has flown thousands of combat sorties. The IDF is in this war. Your question answers itself if you read beyond the headlines.
You quote Sherman on war being hell. Sherman also burned Atlanta and marched to the sea — because he understood that wars end faster when you destroy the enemy's capacity to fight rather than accommodating it indefinitely. That is the thesis of sixteen reports you have not read.
Five rounds, Dan. You have produced zero sources, zero counter-data, and zero engagement with a single one of the 62 exhibits. You have produced insults, strawmen, conspiracy theories, and now a Sherman quote that undermines your own argument. The pattern is complete. I have nothing left to offer you because you have brought nothing to the exchange.
The reports are on the record. Your comments are on the record. The audience can see both. That is sufficient.
Regurgitating the same propaganda doesn’t make it truer the next time you write it. The guy passing off “guesses” as probability is the one relying on strawmen.
Your specious excuse for Israel makes it clear that you are just one more hasbara masquerading as a self-anointed expert.
Suggest you start doing some independent research and look into how many flights are landing at Andrews from Germany - being met by ambulances.
See you think that your “stats” and other questionable data erases reality. It doesn’t.
You don’t grasp that your endpoint will not be reached because the fight to come requires actual fighters who are better armed & supported than the defender. The force being bandied about isn’t large enough to take and hold the island. Your belief that the U.S. will be able to re-supply via water and air is nothing more than wishful thinking. Your refusal to deal with that fact is why your analysis has no meaning.
Or are you going to play it like the Pentagon in Millennium Challenge?
Any such move would have to be coupled with a means to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
And our NATO "allies" are not interested in this because they are more interested in wiping out Israel (and their own Jews) and keeping their violent Muslim populations from blowing them up
This is part of the bigger picture of the Midterms. We don’t want IRGC or China in Venezuela. We don’t want China in Greenland: we should keep China from establishing a trade route from India through the Middle East to Africa. We want a free independent Iran. We shouldn’t be flippant. The long game will get US so much farther.
agree!
How do WTP reach our leaders. I know they’re working on the save act. MAGAs are loyal but sometimes robotic. All of our opinions are valuable. Could you and also the Carolina Journal and National Review do open letters from consolidated Chats with signatures?
This makes damned good sense. The regime can implode or actually starve to death. The worst case scenario is post-mullah takeover by even more destructive radicals or warlords. And that would be bad for the citizens of Iran and less bad for everyone else. Hormuz would reopen and business as usual could go on. Bankruptcy in Iran will prevent purchase of ballistics. Also wish that they would freeze assets that are being laundered through allied banks. Just to make the rats leaving the ship uncomfortable.
This is a bad idea. There will be a bloodbath.
A new bloodbath or a continuation of the old one? There has been ongoing killing of Americans for years. Bloodbath or slow bleed? Does that make a difference? Regular rocket, suicide bombers and murders in Israel. Slow bleed I guess. Slaughter of Iranian citizens by mullahs for disagreeing. That’s a bloodbath and it will not stop until everyone puts on the hijab and closes their mouth, or until the regime goes away. Anyone recall gassing the citizens in Syria? No blood. Just death. I agree with you that there is no bloodless way to change things and I regret it. I just can’t agree to let it continue status quo. Thank you for being concerned with loss of life. Lucky for us that others have to make the brutal decisions. We can just sit and deliver opinion.
The seizure of Kharg Island should’ve been a Day 1 objective to coincide with the targeted assassinations and the initial blitz before the regime knew what hit it and could regain its footing.
It's a reasonable thought. But allowing Iran to load it up with soldiers that we could blockade and siege might be easier and safer for us. Plus, once they get hungry enough, they'll probably frag their commanders and surrender.
Not likely, the IRGC is like the SS - they are the fanatics willing to die for the regime.
Wow, Mr. Cordle. That ‘s a lot to digest. Seizing Kharg Island sounds like a slam dunk according to your research as outlined in this column, and personally, I have always been in heavy favor of President Trump “finishing the job.” But I would like more follow up regarding China’s potential response to a U.S. control of the Island. If I understand correctly, you theorize that China would just shrug it off and figure out another way to buy the oil they need? Sounds too easy. And nothing about war is easy. What am I missing?
Timely focus. I finished a China piece yesterday.
This is an excellent analysis. It really gets to the heart of the issue.
One thing people keep debating is the Strait of Hormuz, but it seems inconceivable to me that the U.S. and Israel wouldn’t already have a plan for that. Any serious battle planning would begin by asking: what are Iran’s strongest leverage points? The Strait of Hormuz would be at the very top of that list.
That’s why I suspect much of what we’re seeing right now — the delays, the extensions, the negotiations — is simply part of the process. Trump has used this approach before: apply pressure, give the other side chances, and then act decisively.
When thousands of Marines and major naval assets move into the region, they’re not there for symbolism. My guess is that the high command in both the U.S. and Israel understands exactly what the strategic endgame looks like.
So while many commentators jump to conclusions that the U.S. might back down, I tend to wait for the final act. Trump has a pattern of moving slowly and then striking hard.
Your article makes a compelling case that cutting the regime’s financial lifeline could be the key turning point.
I fully agree with your views (and that is very rare) and would wish that many other Western countries would become (even unofficially) allies.
However, I would like to share a few stimulating thoughts:
1.China is showing ambivalent behavior, which is probably not coincidental but traditional, if one has read "The Art of War." This ancient strategic thinking is still very much practiced in the modern world, and it is not only timeless but also knows no haste. Nevertheless, "The Art of War" is very effective and still corresponds to Chinese culture.
2.At the same time, one should consider how to compensate for the emerging religious vacuum. Even if it seems marginal or obsolete to us in Western cultures, religious thinking is part of Iranian culture and should be replaced by a constructive religion that is not oriented toward destruction or overpopulation, because otherwise a breeding ground for new radical religious fanatics will emerge.
3.Immediately after the end of hostilities, the civilian population should be offered essential survival goods, with a clear marking (Star of David, American flag, etc.), because it burns itself deeply into the subconscious who honestly helped in difficult times.
The generally positive attitude of the post-war generation in Germany and Austria is mainly due to the relief supplies of beans and peas, as well as the Marshall Plan after the Second World War!
Thank you for your very informative article!!
Interesting piece, Mr Cordle. I have felt that the Artesh are positioned as the key moderating factor waiting to see the regime and IRGC degraded before, hopefully, siding with the people. But with new reports of more Iraqi militias moving into Iran, particularly into the oil-rich Khuzestan province, does this alter your assessment at all? Is it foreseeable that the Artesh become expected to fight Iraqi militias?
Iraqi militias moving into Iran is a new development worth watching. Opposition forces are positioning to fill the vacuum if the regime collapses — or to force the collapse themselves. Thanks for flagging this. If confirmed at scale, it could accelerate regime change faster than the financial kill chain alone.
Again, we in the West must understand that the #1 Goal of the Shiaa "True Believer" is Return of the Mahdi --- which will only sequence upon global conflagation. Any remaining IRGC officer remaining will surely detonate the Kharg facility, rather than allow it to fall intact to Infudels
The Mahdist theology exists. It influences some within the IRGC. It does not govern the institution. The proof: the IRGC has had weeks to destroy Kharg and has not. It repaired Kharg every time Saddam bombed it in the 1980s. The men running the regime bought Caribbean passports and Dubai villas — not the behavior of men seeking apocalyptic conflagration. The sabotage risk is real and will be planned for. The word "surely" is not. When the senior commanders are dead and the foot soldiers have not been paid in two months, the theological impulse competes with the survival impulse. In 27 days of evidence, survival is winning.
Then let them. China is the one screwed in that case.
No need to risk American lives…. Just bomb the ports where the oil is transferred to waiting tankers. No need to destroy all the infrastructure. The regime would lose revenue for several months, and the IRGC might well collapse before they can be repaired.
Kharg Island is 350 miles from the Straits of Hormuz. A B-2 mission ot two would take it out in a night. The waters around it are supposedly mined and we don't have minesweepers. It is totally exposed and Iran still has lots of drones, the small ones evade radar. Sending troppos there makes no sense to me. Then you have to continue to resupply it.
Bomb Kharg Island and bypass it. Get other navies to help open the The Straits of Hormuz and if Iran doesn't - take out their power plants.
Bomb Kharg and you destroy a $35 billion asset, spike oil prices, and give the regime something to rebuild when the war ends. Seize it and the oil keeps flowing, prices come down, and the revenue changes hands permanently. That is the difference between breaking something and owning it. The infrastructure was deliberately preserved on March 13 for exactly this reason.
On your specific objections:
"We don't have minesweepers." The assault is vertical envelopment — Ospreys delivering Marines from beyond mine range to the island's interior. The mines are on the shoreline. The Marines bypass them entirely. The Tripoli ARG includes LPDs with surface connectors for reinforcement after the initial seizure secures the landing zones.
"Iran still has lots of drones, the small ones evade radar." Drone launches are down 95% from Day One. CENTCOM has persistent ISR tracking every defensive preparation on Kharg in real time. The pre-assault strike package eliminates identified positions before the first Marine lands. The former 5th Fleet commander called the mission "absolutely executable."
"You have to resupply it." Kharg is 15 miles offshore. Helicopter resupply range from any platform in the northern Gulf. The Boxer arrives mid-April with full sustainment capability. The 82nd Airborne provides the bridging force. This is not a base at the end of a thousand-mile supply chain. It is an island within rotary-wing range of the fleet.
"Get other navies to help open the Strait." The Strait is opening itself. The man who ran the blockade was killed March 26 along with his entire naval command. One hundred sixteen vessels transited March 1–19. Eight tankers this week. The enforcement mechanism is collapsing because the enforcers are dead.
"B-2 mission would take it out in a night." That is the point. The US can destroy Kharg anytime. Trump said so. The question is why you would destroy an asset you can own. Destruction is a threat. Seizure is a strategy. The threat keeps the regime at the table. The seizure ends the game.
I just see Kharg island as not being the issue but rather Hormuz. You dont need to blow up the whole island - just the infrastructure that loads the tankers. In addition you can always prevent tankers from getting near the place all without troops on the ground
In any case the Saudis have already figured out what to do and that is to switch their oil shipping to the Yanbu on the Red Sea where they are using their 750 mile pipeline to export from there.
You wrote a good article and I hope you are correct.
We won't have long to wait to see how it plays out one way or the other unless the Iranian Regime totally caves in teh negotiations and that doesn't look like it's going to happen.
John, you are asking the right question but framing it backward. Hormuz is the symptom. Kharg is the disease.
Ask yourself why Iran closed the Strait. Not theology. Not pride. Money. The Strait is the chokepoint through which Iran's oil — and everyone else's — reaches the market. Iran closed it to impose cost on the world and protect its revenue. The blockade is not an end. It is an instrument of the regime's financial survival.
Now ask what happens when you remove the regime.
Seize Kharg and the revenue stops. Without revenue the IRGC cannot make payroll. Without payroll the security forces desert. Without security forces the regime falls. What replaces it — a transitional authority, a democratic government, whatever the Iranian people choose — has no interest in blockading the Strait. The opposite. A successor government needs oil revenue more desperately than the IRGC did. It needs to rebuild, feed eighty-eight million people, and establish legitimacy. The first act of any post-regime authority is to open the Strait, restart exports, and get paid. The blockade ends not because the old regime chose to stop — but because the old regime no longer exists and the new one needs the money.
You suggested bombing the loading infrastructure and bypassing the island. That solves Hormuz temporarily. Iran rebuilds the loaders. The revenue restarts. The Strait closes again. You are back where you started — with a destroyed asset, higher oil prices, and a regime that outlasted you. Seizure is permanent. The oil keeps flowing under new control. The revenue funds a transition, not the IRGC.
Trump confirmed the logic yesterday. He compared what the US might do with Iran's oil to the Venezuela model — seizing control of the resource, not destroying it. He extended the energy destruction pause to April 6 while the Tripoli arrives today and the 82nd Airborne deploys. The pause is not indecision. It is the countdown synchronized to force positioning.
On Hormuz specifically — you do not need to force it open. The man who ran the blockade was killed March 26 along with his entire naval command. One hundred sixteen vessels transited March 1–19. Eight tankers this week. The enforcement mechanism is already collapsing. Seize Kharg and the collapse accelerates — because the regime that ordered the blockade can no longer pay the men who enforce it. The Strait opens as the regime dies. Same timeline. Same cause.
The Saudis rerouting to Yanbu confirms the analysis. Every barrel that bypasses Hormuz reduces the leverage the blockade provides — accelerating the regime's financial collapse. Smart move by Riyadh. It means the IRGC's toll corridor is losing customers from both ends — seizure from above, rerouting from below.
Kharg is not about the Strait. Kharg is about regime change. The Strait is the consequence.
Great Explanation - Thank you.
I guess that is why I was an E-4 in the US Army and not a high ranking General who had decision making responsibility.
John, that is the most honest response in this thread. You asked a hard question, got an answer, and updated. That is rarer than it should be. E-4s who think clearly outrank generals who do not. Thank you for the exchange — it made the argument sharper.
I pray this is correct. Washington cannot stop Trump. Only Trump can stop Trump.
As you make clear in your piece, the Kharg facility is the primary source of revenue for the regime/IRGC. Repairing damage done by a beligerent neighbor is one thing; allowing the same to be exploited by the "Twin Satans", to my mind, is another.
To expect surviving leadership of this messianic blood-cult to suddenly change their world view to realpolitik/ capitalism would be ( an answer to this Christian's prayers ) discounting a belief held so fervently that thousands of jihadis have willingly "suicided" their way to Allah.
For one man, from one of the 31 nodes you mentioned, to send one drone laden with a half kg of nearly fissible material ( a dirty drone ) may be preferable, to that last believer.
Excellent analysis, and your mention of lack of payments "cannot be replaced with ideology alone"--well, I would not fully agree. We have seen that those who believe in the apocalyptic death cult of radical Islam will happily strap bombs to their own children to make them "martyrs." Lack of a paycheck is nothing to them.
Excellent report and writing. Updates due: Shamkhani family (led by Ali the Elimated Shamkhani, a r former Iranian naval officer Mojtaba the Comatose Cardboard Khamenei formerly maintained a global property empire in London, Dubai, Frankfurt, and Mallorca.
OH‼️💥💥💥I love this‼️🇮🇱🇺🇸✝️✡️💯🗡️🔥❤️💪👍😺
Delusional.
Here is the perspective from someone with the background & experience with war.
US General Joseph Votel (retired) - former CENTCOM Commander.
“Both of those things are feasible. Let me just start with Kharg Island. We can put troops on there. We can air mobile them in. We could land them by boat. I guess the comment I have about Kharg is, I’m not sure what the significance is of putting troops there. It’s only about 20 miles off the coast of Iran. So you’re definitely under the threat of their weapon systems. You’d be very, very vulnerable there. And I don’t know that it would give us any particular tactical advantage that we don’t already have or couldn’t get someplace else at an offset location where we have established bases and other things like that. So I’m not sure what the tactical advantage of it is.
I get that it has an informational and kind of messaging advantage against the Iranians that we are on their territory. And it may send a message to the broader energy community that we are safeguarding these vital Iranian infrastructures. That might give them some confidence [but] kind of an odd thing to do. But I just don’t really see the big advantage of going to Kharg.”
https://www.twz.com/news-features/former-centcom-commander-on-what-u-s-boots-on-the-ground-in-iran-could-entail
Dan, General Votel deserves respect. He commanded CENTCOM. His tactical concerns are legitimate. But read his own words. "I'm not sure what the significance is." "I don't really see the big advantage."
He does not see it because he is looking through the wrong lens.
Votel evaluates Kharg as a military objective and finds no advantage over existing bases. Correct — if the objective is military positioning. It is not. The objective is revenue control. Kharg handles 90% of Iran's crude exports. $31.2 billion annually. The IRGC burns $450 million a week. Seizing Kharg does not give the US a better firing position. It gives the US the regime's bank account. Votel calls that "kind of an odd thing to do." Odd is one word for it. Decisive is another.
The named experts who have studied the financial dimension say go. Jack Keane — four-star general — calls it checkmate. Keith Kellogg — former acting national security adviser — says take it. Mark Cancian — Marine colonel at CSIS — says doable with casualties. A former CENTCOM commander confirmed a battalion could seize it. On the other side: Rear Admiral Montgomery warns the risk exceeds the gain, and an anonymous Substack writer calls it a suicide mission. The named experts sign their work. The anonymous one does not. That distinction matters.
The Beirut comparison — the anonymous writer's centerpiece — fails on every variable. Beirut was a static garrison in an urban war zone surrounded by a hostile population with no military objective and no exit. Kharg is a 25-square-kilometer island with a destroyed garrison, a defined financial objective, a force arrival timeline, and an exit built into the Boxer's mid-April arrival. Invoking Beirut without engaging those differences is not analysis. It is fear dressed as history.
Votel's tactical risks are real. They exist in a context he does not reference. Missile launches down 95%. The naval command killed in a single strike March 26. The defense industrial base destroyed. Persistent ISR tracking every preparation on the island. Ninety military targets destroyed March 13. Non-stealth B-1Bs flying deep into Iranian airspace unchallenged. Votel retired before this war. The Iran he commanded against had a navy, air defenses, a missile arsenal, and a functioning command structure. That Iran no longer exists. Applying his experience to a country that has lost all four is the pre-war fallacy — committed by a man whose experience should have inoculated him against it.
Now the question neither Votel nor you addressed. What happens if the IRGC keeps Kharg.
Iran continues collecting tolls. The Ras Laffan strike already destroyed 17% of Qatar's LNG capacity for three to five years. Iraq is in force majeure. Brent stays above $100. The IRGC payroll continues. The proxy network continues. Rockets into Israel continue. Strikes on US bases continue. The nuclear program reconstitutes within five years under a regime that uses energy infrastructure as a weapon.
That is not a hypothetical. It is the confirmed trajectory without seizure. The anonymous writer calls taking Kharg a suicide mission. Leaving the machine funded is the real one.
The military execution is a vertical assault at low-to-moderate risk. Tripoli in deep water beyond mine range. MV-22s and F-35Bs insert directly. The 31st MEU executes the seizure. The Boxer follows with the 11th MEU — combined force 4,700. Mines matter for the hold phase, not the air seizure. The vulnerability window between Tripoli and Boxer is 11 to 16 days. The reports name it plainly. It cannot be eliminated. It can be compressed.
The post-seizure model is not Iraq. De-Baathification gutted institutions, removed professionals, and created the vacuum that produced ISIS. The model is post-Soviet Eastern Europe — remove the ideological layer, keep the professional structure, rebuild under transitional authority. The oil revenue goes into trust for the Iranian people. The 20,000 workers on Kharg — unpaid for two months — cooperate with the force that restarts their paychecks.
Dan, you opened with "delusional." You closed with a general who admits he does not see the advantage. I have spent sixteen reports documenting exactly what that advantage is. The significance of Kharg is $35 billion a year. It is the regime's last paycheck. It is the difference between a hostile takeover and a forever war.
Votel thinks like a commander. The kill chain is financial. Finance is the lens he does not have. It is the lens you dismissed when you told me my analysis was "suboptimal." Sixteen reports and 100s of sources later, the analysis is on the record. Your critique is a word and a quote from a general who agrees the island can be taken but cannot see why it should be.
I can see why. That is the difference.
This isn’t a video game nor an M&A event. Relying on the Fox News military cabal only further erodes your position.
This is war in which young Americans are having their lives put at risk for a foreign nation’s benefit.
That your “analysis” does not address this is why it has no value except to the neocons and Israeli warmongers.
Tell me why doesn’t your “analysis” include the IDF being part of the assault force?!
Your recitation of what you “believe” to be Iran’s force capability aren’t factual - they are propaganda from either the Trump administration or their masters.
Iran has been under sanctions longer and more extensively than any country on Earth except two, North Korea and Cuba. Yet during all these decades they have built a massive arsenal that has pulverized US military bases, battered the GCC, hit Riyadh today and is plastering Israel on a daily basis.
Your “analysis” ignores these facts and jumps to the “belief” that victory will be “a cake walk” and once achieved the Iranian’s will welcome their conquerors with open arms. You should at least try a new approach as opposed to the same bullshit used to support the neocon Iraq debacle.
I will listen to and give weight to those who know of what they speak because they have lived through it…
“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.” – attributed to William Tecumseh Sherman.
Dan, five rounds now. Each one louder. Each one with less evidence.
I never said "cake walk." Quote me. You cannot because I did not say it. I assigned 75% probability to Kharg seizure and 50% to regime collapse. Those are not certainties. They are weighted assessments against 62 sources. Putting words in my mouth and then attacking the words you invented is a textbook strawman.
"Fox News military cabal." Jack Keane served 37 years and retired as Army Vice Chief of Staff. Kellogg was acting national security adviser. Cancian is a Marine colonel at CSIS. Donegan commanded the 5th Fleet. Dismissing them as a "cabal" does not make their operational assessments disappear. It makes yours look unserious.
"Iran has built a massive arsenal that is plastering Israel daily." Missile launches are down 95% from Day One. That is not my belief. That is the Department of Defense. The arsenal you describe is depleting — every missile fired is one that cannot be replaced because the defense industrial base that manufactured them is destroyed. You are describing Day One capability on Day 28. The trend line is the argument you refuse to read.
"Young Americans having their lives put at risk for a foreign nation's benefit." Thirteen Americans have died. The regime they are fighting had 440 kilograms of enriched uranium seventeen days from breakout — enough for eleven nuclear weapons with missiles that reach Diego Garcia. A nuclear-armed IRGC is not Israel's problem. It is the world's problem. The Strait of Hormuz carries twenty percent of global oil supply. That is not a foreign nation's benefit. That is the American economy's energy supply.
"Why doesn't the IDF join the assault force?" Israel is conducting continuous strikes across Iran — killing commanders, destroying missile sites, degrading air defenses. It killed Tangsiri and the entire IRGC naval command on March 26. It killed Khamenei, Larijani, and Shamkhani. It has flown thousands of combat sorties. The IDF is in this war. Your question answers itself if you read beyond the headlines.
You quote Sherman on war being hell. Sherman also burned Atlanta and marched to the sea — because he understood that wars end faster when you destroy the enemy's capacity to fight rather than accommodating it indefinitely. That is the thesis of sixteen reports you have not read.
Five rounds, Dan. You have produced zero sources, zero counter-data, and zero engagement with a single one of the 62 exhibits. You have produced insults, strawmen, conspiracy theories, and now a Sherman quote that undermines your own argument. The pattern is complete. I have nothing left to offer you because you have brought nothing to the exchange.
The reports are on the record. Your comments are on the record. The audience can see both. That is sufficient.
Regurgitating the same propaganda doesn’t make it truer the next time you write it. The guy passing off “guesses” as probability is the one relying on strawmen.
Your specious excuse for Israel makes it clear that you are just one more hasbara masquerading as a self-anointed expert.
Suggest you start doing some independent research and look into how many flights are landing at Andrews from Germany - being met by ambulances.
See you think that your “stats” and other questionable data erases reality. It doesn’t.
You don’t grasp that your endpoint will not be reached because the fight to come requires actual fighters who are better armed & supported than the defender. The force being bandied about isn’t large enough to take and hold the island. Your belief that the U.S. will be able to re-supply via water and air is nothing more than wishful thinking. Your refusal to deal with that fact is why your analysis has no meaning.
Or are you going to play it like the Pentagon in Millennium Challenge?
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wartech/nature.html?utm_source=perplexity
The reference point isn’t Iraq, it is Gallipoli.
I'm with you on that synopsis Dan. This is gonna be bloody to say the least.
Any such move would have to be coupled with a means to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
And our NATO "allies" are not interested in this because they are more interested in wiping out Israel (and their own Jews) and keeping their violent Muslim populations from blowing them up