The United States is considering taking the Iranian island of Jark to break the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

According to Axios, the United States is considering occupying Jark Island to have a powerful lever that would compel Iran to loosen the strait’s closure.

“The war in the Middle East: The three traps for Trump in the Strait of Hormuz: 'kill box' for oil tankers, payment in yuan, and a labyrinth of islands”

El Mundo

With only 20 square kilometers of surface area and located 25 kilometers from the Iranian city of Bushehr, the oil terminal on Jark Island exports about 90% of Iran's crude oil and is supplied by pipelines from nearby offshore fields.

El Mundo

The United States and Israel have bombed the island's military facilities, but not the oil facilities, something that could spell the end of Iran as a viable state.

Many analysts believe that this has not yet happened because Washington, unlike Tel Aviv, still wishes to have a counterpart on the other side to negotiate.

The report to which Axios has had access reveals that this is a plan that is being studied at the moment, although Trump has not made a final decision.

It is to be assumed that the Iranians have the island well defended even before learning this leak.

In parallel, the United States has deployed the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, a quick-reaction force consisting of about 2,500 Marines, which is moving to the Middle East at the moment, although no one has specified the mission they are to be entrusted with or whether it is related to conducting a landing on Jark Island.

That expeditionary group is not yet near the Persian Gulf and would still take a week to arrive.

El Mundo

If the plan is implemented and aimed at taking that island, ships would have to pass first through the Strait of Hormuz, within range of Iranian anti-ship missiles and drones, risks that are not as large as the landing itself, one of the most complex maneuvers of modern warfare.

The mission could be being prepared right now with attacks on the Strait of Hormuz area to facilitate the entry of US warships.

“The war in the Middle East: The three traps for Trump in the Strait of Hormuz: 'kill box' for oil tankers, payment in yuan, and a labyrinth of islands”

El Mundo

According to The Wall Street Journal, 'The United States and its allies have intensified the battle by sending attack aircraft that fly at low altitude over sea routes to strike Iranian navy ships and Apache helicopters to shoot down Iran's deadly drones.'

According to several intelligence analysts, Iran's boats have mined the southern part of the strait, so ships must approach the Iranian coast if they do not want to suffer delays.

The United States has mine-sweeping ships, but that operation to clear the sea would occur under the threat of enemy fire.

Jark is only 25 kilometers from the coast.

That is, within the range of Iran's short-range missiles, drones and artillery.

It has no strategic depth or room to maneuver.

It is, militarily speaking, being forced to operate within the enemy's weapons system, not outside of it.

Jark may be an accessible target on the map, but militarily it is a trap: easy to reach, difficult to sustain, and almost impossible to isolate from Iranian fire.

President Donald Trump has described, in a message where he again insults his NATO allies, as 'a simple maneuver.'

The history shows otherwise.

El Mundo

Facing a landing on a well-defended beach requires enormous superiority over the defender, days of artillery preparation, and complete control of the air.

Despite that, casualties tend to be enormous.

One only has to think of other island landings, such as Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, the Falklands, Grenada, or Crete, the latter conquered in a costly airborne operation.

This mission, the landing on an island near Iran, carries enormous risks for the US Army and Navy.

'We need about a month to weaken the Iranians... and then take the island,' they said at the Pentagon.

Even if they can neutralize all external defenses, those Gulf islands are full of caves and underground bunkers dug for decades and even formed naturally.