US Dispatched Marines To Mideast, Feeding Iran Invasion Warnings

Iran has reportedly attacked at least six commercial ships in the area since Wednesday, including one marked with a Thai flag that still has three crew members missing. US intelligence sources have also accused Iran of laying mines in the Strait, which Iran has neither confirmed nor denied.

The blockage of the strait, through which about one-fifth of global oil shipments pass each year, has sent the global market into chaos. Prices of Brent crude have surged from under $70 less than a month ago to more than $100 per barrel on the global market, and US gas prices have leaped to $3.63 per gallon on average, up from $2.94 a month ago.

Prices have continued to climb even after the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced its largest-ever coordinated release of oil from nations' strategic reserves on Wednesday to combat what it called“the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.”

Shashank Joshi, the defense editor at The Economist and a visiting fellow at the Department of War Studies at King's College London, said that a deployment of such a large Marine force seems to be“a key indicator of a potential ground operation” in Iran.

Trump said earlier this week that he was“nowhere near” sending troops into Iran even as it ramped up threats to block the strait. But privately, he has reportedly been mulling plans to put“boots on the ground” within Iranian territory to accomplish a number of objectives, though officials have characterized them as limited special-operations missions.

Administration officials have reportedly suggested a commando raid on Iran's nuclear sites to confiscate or sabotage its supply of uranium, according to Axios. They've also considered a plan to occupy Kharg Island, which sits 15 miles off Iran's coast and handles about 90% of its oil exports, serving as an economic“lifeline” for the battered nation.

But Trump has also said that if Iran blocks the strait,“the US Navy and its partners will escort tankers through the strait, if needed.” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Dan Caine, has said the Pentagon is looking at“a range of options” to do this.

In an analysis published Tuesday by Zeteo, Harrison Mann, a former US Army major and executive officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency's Middle East/Africa Regional Center, suggested that the US may pursue an ambitious plan to“clear Iran's coastline around the strait” to get tankers moving again.

Mann, who worked under the Biden administration but resigned to protest what he saw as its support for genocide in Gaza, said this plan would require“an indefinite occupation – otherwise missile trucks could just get in position after US forces leave.” Doing this, he added, would require“a full-fledged invasion, possibly beyond even the 10,000 or so rapid-response forces at Trump's disposal.”

“All of these ground operations risk high casualties while failing to accomplish their missions,” Mann said.“That's a feature, not a bug. Even if one of these operations met its objectives, troops in peril behind enemy lines demand resupply, evacuation and revenge, which puts more troops in peril behind enemy lines, and so on.”