Trump weighs ground troops, 'fatal blow' options to pressure Iran

As the US-Iran war enters its fifth month, a ground troop deployment scenario has resurfaced as one of the options Washington is weighing to deliver a decisive blow in the conflict. Since the war began, US forces have struck Iran exclusively through air operations.

The only instance of US troops setting foot on Iranian soil came in late March, when special operations forces rescued a fighter pilot whose aircraft went down over Iranian territory. The US had positioned Marine and airborne units alongside amphibious assault ships near Iran — moves that suggested ground operations were at least being considered — but no such deployment was ever carried out. A ground invasion would mark a fundamental shift in the nature of the conflict, amounting to all-out war.

President Donald Trump recently convened a meeting in the White House Situation Room where aides briefed him on ground troop deployment options, US media reported Wednesday (local time).

Axios, citing multiple sources, said the Wednesday meeting saw Trump and his advisers discuss expanding the scope of military operations — currently limited to the area around the Strait of Hormuz — to mount a large-scale offensive.

The Wall Street Journal reported that three broad options are on the table for such an offensive: intensifying airstrikes, bombing underground nuclear facilities, and deploying ground troops to seize islands near the Strait of Hormuz.

If ground troops are deployed, the location drawing the most media attention is Kharg Island — widely regarded as Iran's economic jugular. The small island, 483 kilometers northwest of the Strait of Hormuz and 25 kilometers off the Iranian coast, handles roughly 90 percent of Iran's crude oil exports through its terminal.

Trump has repeatedly hinted at seizing Kharg Island since the war began. US forces have bombed the island's military installations during the conflict, but oil-related infrastructure has been left untouched on Trump's orders — both to avoid rattling international oil markets and because of concerns about the difficulty of postwar reconstruction.

In a Wednesday interview with Fox News, Trump stopped short of confirming a ground assault on Kharg Island but did not rule it out entirely. He said he could not say whether US troops would seize the island — "that would be a foolish thing to say" — but added, "If we weaken them enough and push them back, we'll do it."

Also under discussion is the seizure of strategically significant islands near the Strait of Hormuz — Abu Musa, Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb — rather than Kharg Island itself. Analysts expect that US control of those islands would significantly weaken Iran's grip on the strait.

The central problem with any ground deployment, however, is that the United States would likely pay a price as well. Domestic opposition to ground operations — already strained by memories of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — could intensify, and planners must also account for worst-case scenarios including mission failure or US casualties.

A full-scale war with Iran would almost certainly send shockwaves through global oil and financial markets. It would also force Trump to reverse his own repeated pledges against deploying ground troops.

The Wall Street Journal noted that even seizing islands rather than the Iranian mainland would expose US troops to missile and drone attacks. Iranian asymmetric forces could inflict casualties on US personnel during any such operation.

Robert Howard, a retired vice admiral and former deputy commander of CENTCOM, told Fox News that the greatest danger would be Iran firing missiles and drones at the islands "while US troops are on the ground there." He added that holding the islands after seizing them would prove harder than taking them in the first place.

Ultimately, with the risk that a fatal blow against Iran could boomerang back on the United States, Trump's escalatory rhetoric can be read as a pressure campaign designed to push Tehran back to the negotiating table.

Since publicly revealing Sunday that a near-deal with Iran collapsed at the last moment, Trump has continued to leave the door open to a diplomatic solution, saying he believes an agreement is possible and that one should be reached by next week.

Among the options reported alongside the ground troop scenario is a strike on underground nuclear facilities or civilian infrastructure such as power plants and bridges — a scenario in which the site drawing particular attention is what Trump has repeatedly called "Pickaxe Mountain."

Intelligence indicates that a fortified underground nuclear facility is under construction in tunnel form some 90 to 145 meters beneath the granite summit. In his Wednesday Fox News interview, Trump suggested he could again use the bunker-buster bombs employed in last year's strikes on Iran's underground nuclear sites.

The Wall Street Journal said there is no guarantee of success, however. The Pickaxe Mountain facility is deeper than the Natanz and Fordow sites that bunker-busters reportedly penetrated last year, and the ventilation shafts that served as aiming points in those strikes have not yet been installed at the new site.

Striking Iranian power plants and bridges — which Trump has already threatened, using his own phrase of sending Iran "back to the Stone Age" — could deliver a crippling blow, but it would also invite accusations of violating international law by targeting civilian infrastructure and draw sharp moral condemnation.

Some analysts see Trump's escalating rhetoric, which has reached the point of threatening to resume full-scale hostilities, as a sign of impatience ahead of the November midterm elections — a desire to force a conclusion to the Iran war at any cost, given that the conflict shows no sign of resolution.

Speaking in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, Trump declared, "We are going to defeat Iran very soon. They will be defeated very soon," and predicted that once the situation stabilizes, oil prices will fall to $55 a barrel — the prewar level — "or maybe even lower."