Iran's Kharg Island, the country's main oil export outlet, could be a target for the United States, experts say, in a move that could cut off the revenues that sustain Tehran's sanctions-hit economy.

But the possible capture of the tiny island in the Persian Gulf, which handles around 90 percent of all Iranian oil exports, would mark a major escalation in the US-Israeli war on Iran. It is also unlikely to land a fatal economic blow to the Islamic republic, experts say.

Axiosreportedon March 7 that the US administration has discussed capturing Kharg, on which Iran has heavily depended to export its oil since facilities on the island were built in the 1960s. The island's deep-water berths can accommodate supertankers that move oil in bulk.

Map: Kharg Island

A source close to White House told The New York Post thatcapturing the island"is not so much a matter of if but when, given its critical nature to the outcome of the war."

The Trump administration has not publicly commented on the issue.

"Iran does have other export terminals," Gregory Brew, a historian of Iranian oil and senior analyst at the Eurasia Group, told RFE/RL. "There are five others, including a new one at Jask, east of the Strait of Hormuz, connected to Iran's major oil fields via a 1,000-kilometer-long pipeline."

The Jask oil terminal was builtspecificallyto route exports around the Strait of Hormuz -- and around scenarios like this one, he said.

If the United States attempts to seize control of the island, a scrubby piece of land, Iran could decide to destroy the oil terminals located on Kharg.

"The Iranians could very well be incentivized to destroy the infrastructure in Kharg rather than allowing it to fall into enemy hands," said Brew.

Labelled Satellite Images: Kharg Island

Such a move would hand Washington a symbolic victory and Tehran a propaganda win, while oil markets absorb the shock regardless, experts say.

Any US troops deployed in Kharg would be vulnerable to Iranian counterattacks, Brew said, noting the island has no meaningful protection against missile or drone fire.

Iran has deployed those same weapons across the Persian Gulf since the United States and Israel launched their aerial bombardment of the Islamic republic on February 28.

A possible US seizure of Kharg could also hand Iran's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, a major propaganda win.

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Khamenei, who succeeded his late father as supreme leader on March 8, took power under a cloud of controversy and his legitimacy was contested even within Iran's clerical establishment.

The foreign occupation of Iranian soil would hand him precisely the national emergency needed to burnish his credentials and rally the public.

"It would allow the regime to shift the purpose of the war," Brew said, "from protecting itself against US and Israeli aggression to protecting Iran's territorial integrity."

Is The US Considering Seizing Iran's Kharg Island?

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