Earlier this week, two significant developments took place in the US-Iran War, which suggest that the conflict is about to enter a new, dangerous phase.
On March 14, the US bombed Kharg Island, a small island off the coast of Iran, home to a major oil terminal that is considered the country’s economic lifeline.
The US President Donald Trump said Kharg Island’s military facilities were “totally obliterated” but that it had held off targeting its oil infrastructure.
Simultaneously, the US ordered the deployment of roughly 2,500 Marines aboard up to three amphibious warships from the Indo-Pacific toward the Middle East.
Seen in conjunction, this suggests that the US is likely preparing to seize the Islands in the Strait of Hormuz in the coming weeks.
US military control of Iranian islands in the critical Strait of Hormuz would ensure the safe passage of oil tankers through the narrow waterway.
Oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz have faced persistent Iranian attacks since the start of the war.
Ensuring the safe passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz is critical for the US, as any prolonged crisis there could turn neutral countries against the US and even alienate the US’s Gulf partners, who depend on oil exports.
As oil tankers come under attack, the US Navy considers escorting the tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, and a 2500-strong marine force is mobilized for a possible attack on Iranian islands in the critical energy corridor. Many security experts have termed the situation as unprecedented.
However, this situation has a close parallel from nearly four decades ago.
In 1988, oil tankers were routinely targeted in the Strait of Hormuz, the US Navy was escorting Kuwait flagged tankers through the water channel, the Iranian Navy and the US Navy were targetting each other’s ships, and, according to an account by former US Navy officer, who participated in the military operations in the Middle East during that time, for a brief moment, the US even considered invading Iranian islands in the Strait of Hormuz.
As Trump gathers his Marine force in the Middle East for a likely invasion of Iranian islands, this incident from 38 years ago could provide invaluable lessons to the US military and its strategists.
The First Tanker War
Iran and Iraq fought a bloody war for eight long years from 1980 to 1988.
By 1987, both countries were regularly targeting each other’s oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
During this war, more than 450 international merchant ships were targeted in the Strait of Hormuz. Of these, nearly 250 were oil tankers.
Casualties included over 400 civilian seafarers killed across the campaign, with hundreds more wounded, and massive economic impacts.
To safeguard energy supply, the US Navy started escorting Kuwaiti ships reflagged as American vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
In May 1987, the US Navy’s guided missile frigate USS Stark suffered 37 dead following an apparently accidental Iraqi Exocet strike. Ironically, it was the Iraqi attack on the USS Stark that helped pressurise Washington into inserting its naval forces into the Gulf so as to protect international shipping against Iranian strikes.
In fact, between 1979, starting with the Iranian revolution, and 1987, the US suffered a series of humiliations in the Middle East.
In 1979, Iranian revolutionaries took 52 American hostages and held them for 444 days. The Desert One rescue mission failed the following year, leaving eight servicemembers dead in the Iranian desert. A suicide bomber killed 241 Marines and sailors in Beirut in 1983.
The Exocet strike by an Iraqi jet on USS Stark, resulting in the death of 37 US military personnel, proved the final provocation, and Washington decided to intervene militarily.
Then, in April 1988, an Iranian mine severely damaged but did not sink an American frigate, USS Samuel B. Roberts, leading to U.S. forces launching retaliatory strikes.
The US forces engaged in a major one-day naval battle with the Iranian Navy, known as Operation Praying Mantis.
Operation Praying Mantis
On April 18, 1988, the U.S. Navy destroyed two Iranian oil platforms, Sassan and Sirri, sank one frigate and a missile boat, crippled a second frigate, destroyed at least three armed speedboats, and drove off Iranian F-4 Phantom jets with missile fire. In just a few hours, American forces obliterated nearly half of Iran’s operational fleet.
The operation aimed to reduce Iran’s capability to operate in the Persian Gulf during the final phase of the Tanker War.
By some accounts, this was the largest naval battle since the Second World War.
Tension remained high between the US and Iran throughout 1988, including the July 3, 1988, shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes.
That time, the US did not launch a ground invasion of Iran.
However, according to a former US Navy officer, Washington seriously considered a ground invasion of the Iranian islands in the Strait of Hormuz.
Malcolm Nance, a former U.S. Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer (intelligence specialist) who served on the intelligence staff aboard the USS Coronado (AGF-11), said that the U.S. conducted a wargame or force-estimate exercise for a hypothetical operation to seize key Iranian-controlled islands in the Strait of Hormuz.
While no such plan details have been declassified, according to Malcolm’s recollection, the first phase of the invasion would have focused on capturing Larak Island, a small, rocky outpost with potential radar/missile sites, Hormuz Island (strategic for overlooking the strait), Qeshm Island (the largest island with military bases and population centers), and Hengam Island, used for observation posts.
Capturing these islands would help box in Bandar Abbas, Iran’s major mainland naval base, by controlling the approaches and denying resupply or reinforcement.
This would have allowed the US to dominate the Strait of Hormuz.
But the US decided not to implement this plan. According to Malcolm, it was because this would have meant the US invading Iran.
“Hundreds of thousands of Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Basij would come out and bombard/suicide attack these islands from the mountains that hover over them,” Malcolm wrote.
Malcolm further explains that the same reasons the US decided not to invade Iranian islands in 1988 are valid even today.
“Resupply would be from UAE/Qatar bases, which will get hit again. They may not agree to do it. Then that means a supply chain that would have to come through a hotly contested Strait of Hormuz,” he added.
“The MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit) would have to launch Assault craft/LAVs/Hovercraft from off east of the Mussandam peninsula under the view of the Iranian mountains, under fire from Shaeds, submarine drones, drone suicide boats, or the mines we have not detected in the Strait of Hormuz.
“We don’t have enough tracked amphibious armor, LCU landing craft, or LCAC-100 Hovercraft to bring in the right size force to the beach … and that force would be bombarded by suicide drones day and night.”
He also cautioned that even in 1988, the Middle East Force commanders modeled the wargame with a force of at least 6,000 Marines, and still decided not to implement the plan.
The deployment of just 2,500 marines, therefore, is woefully insufficient.
He warned that if the US decides to use parachute forces to storm the Iranian islands, it could end up in a nightmare situation similar to the Russian experiment in Hostemel.
Russia decided to take Hostemel, an airstrip just 36 km from Kyiv, in the first days of the Ukraine War.
Russia was able to parachute its special unit commandos; however, it failed to create a secure air bridge, and the Russian forces there came under heavy counter-battery fire from Ukrainian forces, resulting in heavy casualties for the Russian military.
Even a small US military campaign on Iranian islands in the Strait of Hormuz will be read as an Iranian invasion. The Gulf countries might not allow the US to use their military bases, and therefore, the US’ supply lines will be stretched and exposed to counter-Iranian fire.
The operation could prove a disaster for the US, just like Operation Eagle Claw to rescue American hostages in 1980.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.
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