The Military Hubs

A view of the shoreline on Iran’s Qeshm Island on April 28.Asghar Besharati/Getty Images

Qeshm Island. At a whopping 580 square miles, Iran’s largest and most populous island sits near the Strait of Hormuz and Bandar Abbas, one of Iran’s main ports. Its strategic location makes it the perfect spot for Tehran to advance its regional agenda, while its expansive underground tunnel network and ability to deploy submarines directly into the Gulf have transformed it into a key base of operations for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Qeshm also serves as a staging ground for Iranian forces targeting global shipping. The IRGC uses the massive island, with its several small ports and marinas, to impose Iran’s will on the strait, whether by charging tolls on commercial vessels or attacking ships attempting to transit the thoroughfare.

The island’s significance for Tehran is only matched by Iran’s ability to defend it. According to Andreas Krieg of King’s College London, Qeshm would be one of the hardest islands for the United States to seize, as its vast size would stretch U.S. forces thin. “If you were trying to take some of the smaller islands, you might need 4,000 or 5,000 boots on the ground,” said Krieg, an expert in Middle East security. “If you want to go for something like Qeshm Island, you’re probably looking at 10,000 troops and above just to land.”

At the same time, Qeshm’s close proximity to Iran’s mainland would keep U.S. troops in range of Iranian weaponry, including missiles, drones, mines, and artillery. “Sustaining drone fire is bad, and ballistic missiles are bad, but artillery fire, they can keep that going forever,” Krieg added, stressing that Tehran would have no difficulty resupplying its forces.

Larak Island. All commercial vessels know of Larak. The 19-square-mile outpost is the closest island to the Strait of Hormuz. Although Iran has historically used Larak to monitor global shipping and host IRGC activity, its role has exploded in recent months, largely due to its unique location.

As part of Iranian efforts to exert control over the strait, Tehran has required ships to use a narrow route along Larak’s northern coast. This has given the island gatekeeping control over the entire corridor and bestowed an outsized role on the small territory.

Larak is therefore one of the most likely targets of a potential U.S. assault. “Control of the island would provide a strong platform from which to monitor and secure maritime traffic while constraining Iran’s ability to influence movement through the Strait,” Quilliam wrote.

Hormuz Island. As its name suggests, Hormuz Island sits at the mouth of the strategic waterway. Iranian officials have turned it into an observation outpost, giving the regime critical intelligence about what is usually one of the world’s busiest thoroughfares; prior to the war, around one-fifth of global oil and natural gas shipments passed through the strait. Like Qeshm, Hormuz Island is also located close to the Iranian mainland, keeping it in range of Tehran’s eyes and weaponry.

Of the three strait-based islands, Hormuz holds the least significance. Whereas Qeshm and Larak have expanded their influence, Hormuz has largely kept to the shadows. And unlike its neighbors, it also has the reputation of being a popular tourism hot spot for its striking valleys and red beaches.

Still, Krieg argued, “If you really want to make a difference, you’ll probably have to take all of [the islands],” since the IRGC does not operate out of a single hub. “Maritime militias act as a decentralized network,” with thousands of platforms, both manned and unmanned, Krieg said. “So taking a single island is not going to make a major difference.”

The Political Symbols

An Iranian missile system is seen during an exercise on Abu Musa Island on Aug. 2, 2023. West Asia News Agency/Handout via Reuters

Greater and Lesser Tunb islands. These two islands may be small in size, but their symbolic importance cannot be overstated. In 1971, Iranian forces seized the Greater and Lesser Tunbs from what would become the United Arab Emirates. Today, Abu Dhabi claims sovereignty over both islands, citing historical ties. However, Tehran also cites historical connections to the islands and has been loath to give up control.

That may be because of their location. Despite being farther from the mouth of the strait than Qeshm and Larak, the Tunbs are positioned near key shipping lanes and military installations, providing Iran with another outpost to monitor foreign activity and extend its maritime influence. They also both host IRGC infrastructure, arguably making them important military as well as diplomatic targets—though not as critical as Qeshm in that regard.

Still, perhaps their greatest significance comes from a place of nationalism. Over the past half a century, Tehran has insisted on its right to control both islands, and the Iran war has only intensified the country’s territorial claims. “Iran is our homeland—from south to north, and from east to west. We will defend every inch of our land until our very last breath,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X this month, just two days after the U.S. assault on Greater Tunb.

Abu Musa Island. Farther south sits Abu Musa, another disputed territory claimed by both Iran and the UAE. Unlike the Tunbs, which Iran seized by force, Tehran received joint control of Abu Musa via a 1971 memorandum of understanding with the Emirate of Sharjah. However, neither party gave up its claim to sovereignty. In the decades since, Iran has expanded its presence on the island and now has de facto control.

The island has a small civilian population and is therefore not as heavily militarized as the Tunbs. But that doesn’t mean Abu Musa is without an IRGC presence. Tehran has previously held military training exercises on the island, including drills involving missile launchers.

But more than its military value, Abu Musa—like the Greater and Lesser Tunbs—represents the lengths that Iran will go to in order to protect its national sovereignty. Losing Abu Musa would therefore likely be seen by Tehran as a bitter political defeat.

The Oil Giants

An oil terminal on Iran’s Kharg Island on March 12, 2017.Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Kharg Island. Much of Trump’s ire has centered on Kharg, a small but vital island located some 400 miles from the Strait of Hormuz. Kharg is Iran’s main oil export terminal, handling around 950 million barrels of crude per year (or roughly 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports). Seizing Kharg would significantly strain Tehran’s economy and deal a major blow to the Iranian military’s morale.

“Kharg Island is the single-most important chokepoint for the energy industry in Iran,” Krieg said. “So if you take that, you basically take away the ability of the Iranians to sell oil and thereby make money, which over time, long term, would completely destabilize the regime.”

Trump has mused about controlling Kharg for years, having publicly voiced the idea as far back as 1988. And since launching the Iran war in February, U.S. forces have repeatedly fired on the island.

But experts warn that actually holding Kharg would be a risky and costly endeavor. U.S. ships would have to traverse the entire Persian Gulf to access the territory, only to conclude their assault just 19 miles from the Iranian mainland. The farther U.S. forces move from their Gulf Arab allies, “the more difficult it will be to land anyone there,” Krieg said. “And I don’t think Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or Bahrain, who are the closest to Kharg Island, would allow the U.S. to use their territory as a staging ground to bring boots on the ground.”

Even if those nations did do so, U.S. troops would then have to navigate a heavily militarized, hilly terrain while dodging Iranian artillery and being careful not to accidentally hit oil facilities on the island, which could explode and hurt U.S. forces. Tehran could also purposefully target Kharg’s infrastructure to endanger U.S. personnel. “It will become a dangerous liability,” Nadimi said.

Sirri and Lavan islands. Taking Kharg would not be enough to completely stop Tehran’s ability to export crude. If the United States wanted to fully hamper Iran’s oil economy, then it would also have to take the Sirri and Lavan islands.

“Combined together, Lavan and Sirri terminals offer a loading capacity of around 300,000 barrels per day,” Nadimi said. “As long as Iran is able to produce oil using its offshore oil platforms, they will be able to load that oil on tankers using those islands.” Sirri and Lavan both sit closer to the Strait of Hormuz than Kharg and are often used as export terminals.

Yet these islands are only one part of the Iranian oil equation. “If you do not control the oil production fields and plants and pumping stations and feeder pipelines on the Iranian mainland, there is no use in holding on to Kharg at all,” Nadimi added.