While the skies above Tehran and Isfahan have been illuminated by the flashes of anti-aircraft batteries since February 28 and the Iranian military infrastructure has suffered unprecedented blows, on the Pentagon’s satellite maps there is a point, about 25 miles from the Iranian coast and 483 km north-west of the Strait of Hormuz, of great strategic interest: theKharg Islandin the province of Bushehr.
On the island, in fact, there is the main oil terminal of Iran, which was built towards the end of the 1950s, at the time of the last Shah of Persia, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Inaugurated in the early sixties, it has become a fundamental hub for Iran: in fact, the 90% of oil exports of the country (nine tenths of these exports end up in the hands of China). And it is precisely for this reason that for years it has represented a strategic objective for the country’s enemies ruled by the Ayatollahs. Suffice it to say that even during the War between Iran and Iraq (1980 – 1988) the Iraqis bombed it several times in an attempt to destroy it: they managed to block its activity several times, but never to destroy it completely. Although there are highly flammable materials within this type of site, there are in fact complicated valve systems that allow fires to be isolated relatively quickly, and which make the act of destroying such a large oil facility (it has a surface area of just over 22 and a half square kilometers) truly complicated.
However, after the heaviest bombing of all, which occurred in the fall of 1986, the Iranians rebuilt the oil site and improved it. By doing so, it became possible to dock more than 10 supertankers at the same time.
This island, however, has not only tempted the Iranians, but also the Americans, and in particular Donald Trump, who already had his eye on it 38 years ago. In fact, in a 1988 Guardian interview, the White House housemate stated that if there were Iranian attacks on US men or ships, the country would have to take over the island. Now, according to some analysts, if the American government wanted to almost completely paralyze the Iranian economy, it should concentrate all its forces on this terminal. This is because if the platform were completely unusable, the Iranians would not be able to sell the oil and would not be able to pay the salaries of the Pasdaran. More generally, the people would suffer the greatest repercussions from the oil crisis that would be created.
According to some analysts, however, it could be a misstep for the USA: not just because crude oil prices per barrel would rise dramaticallybut also because Western energy markets could potentially be shattered. But there is also one last reason why it would be better for Trump not to push too hard: the Pasdaran could respond to an attack on the platform by hitting the energy sectors of the Gulf countries even more strenuously, and the damage would have repercussions on the entire region leading to further instability of Tehran’s enemy nations.
