The United States ‘obliterated’ military targets on Kharg Island but left its oil infrastructure intact for now, Trump said.
Above Illustration by The Epoch Times, Google Earth
U.S. forces took out military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island, but left in place its oil infrastructure, President Donald Trump said on March 13.
The assault came 14 days into Operation Epic Fury, marking the first time the island—Tehran’s most vital economic asset—has been targeted in the U.S.-Israeli campaign.
The eight-square-mile island 16 miles from Iran’s Persian Gulf coast is where 90 percent of the oil it exports is pumped from terminals into supertankers—up to 10 at a time—300 miles north of the Hormuz Strait. Most is shipped to Asia, with China the biggest destination.
Trump warned that should Iran continue to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, he would “immediately reconsider” his decision not to bomb the island’s oil assets.
“The United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East, and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island,” Trump said in a March 13 Truth Social post.
“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.”
Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Stu Cvrk, an Epoch Times contributor, said he believed Kharg had been “deliberately spared … to limit escalation.”
“A U.S. strategic objective is to create the conditions for a ‘counterrevolution’ in Iran—one that would oust the current leadership clique, as well as their supporting security and intelligence infrastructure,” he told The Epoch Times.
“That means not providing any reasons the regime could use to convince the Iranian people to rally around it. Taking out Kharg would do exactly that because that would set their ability to export oil back for months, for years.”
It would also send global oil prices skyrocketing, he said.
By John Haughey
