President Trump has railed against Tehran for closing the Strait of Hormuz — a vital shipping lane through which one-fifth of the world's crude oil passes through — threatening to further escalate the war should the regime not reopen the waterway.
To give Trump additional options, several hundred U.S. Special Operations forces have been deployed to the Middle East alongside thousands of Marines and Army paratroopers, The New York Times reported Sunday.
But any U.S. boots on the ground would likely trigger a major escalation in the conflict and a significant response from Iran.
Although weakened after a substantial U.S.-Israeli air campaign that has pounded the country with more than 22,000 bombs and missiles since late February, Iran's regime still has weapons and tactics at its disposal that could inflict damage on American troops, bases and allies in the Persian Gulf region and further disrupt the global economy, according to former U.S. officials and regional analysts.
The most likely scenario to play out would be a direct attack on U.S. forces should they set foot on Iranian soil. Kharg Island, a vital oil deport for Iran which sits roughly 20 miles off Iran's coast, could be easily struck by drones and missiles launched from the mainland. And in all probability, there are still Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces on the island, according to Bryan Clark, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
"You'll see some on the ground resistance, actual full arms fire," he told The Hill. "I imagine they've also booby-trapped it. For U.S. troops [to] go out there I imagine there's a fair number of IEDs and other surprises waiting for them because the perspective of the Iranians is once the U.S. tries to take it, then [they're] not going to be getting production back anytime soon they might as well create some casualties for the U.S. and a political problem for Trump back home."
Joe Costa with the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank, said Iran still can hit American troops with rockets, drones, mines and fast attack boats.
American boots on the ground also would likely trigger stepped-up Iranian attacks on oil and other energy infrastructure in the region, particularly in the Gulf.
"They've been somewhat restrained in striking some of that so far, but they've shown that they can move up the escalation ladder," said Jon Hoffman, a research fellow in defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute.
Trump has largely played down the rising cost of gas in the U.S., insisting the economic pain will be temporary. However, market analysts warn the shock to the global energy industry will only get deeper as the war drags on or escalates.
The Strait of Hormuz isn't the only vital shipping lane that Iran could target. The Red Sea holds another waterway in the Middle East critical to global energy markets that could be closed by Iran and its proxies: the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
Iran's military since late last week warned that that the country would escalate "insecurity in other straits, including the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea," should the U.S. and Israel continue to attack Tehran's energy infrastructure.
Read the full report at thehill.com.
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