US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has threatened to invade Kharg Island in order to take control of Iran’s oil exports.
In an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday, Trump said his ‘preference’ would be for Washington to control Tehran’s oil industry and exports indefinitely, as it did in Venezuela following a military raid in January, which resulted in the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.
‘To be honest with you, my favourite thing is to take the oil in Iran, but some stupid people back in the US say: “Why are you doing that?” But they are stupid people,’ Trump said.
‘Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we do not. We have a lot of options,’ he added, noting that such a move would also mean US forces would have to ‘be there for a while.’
The US Department of War has been amassing forces in the region, fuelling speculation about an imminent ground operation.
However, Iran has significantly reinforced Kharg Island’s defences with special units of its armed forces, mines, air-defence systems and FPV drone units, among others.
The commander of the Iranian Army Ground Force, Brigadier General Ali Jahanshahi, said on Thursday that Iran will ‘incapacitate’ the US and the Israeli regime if they wage a ground invasion of the country.
‘The Iranian Army forces are standing firm and steadfast on the frontlines of defence and they will incapacitate the enemy,’ he stated.
American officials have warned against sending troops to seize Iran’s Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf.
Joe Kent, former director of the National Counter-terrorism Centre, who recently resigned in protest over the ongoing US-Israeli aggression against Iran, has warned that any sort of occupation of Kharg Island would not be a strategic move but could be ‘disastrous and expose US troops to deep danger there and elsewhere in the region.’
The illegal US-Israeli aggression on Iran began on February 28 with airstrikes that assassinated senior Iranian officials and commanders.
The Iranian armed forces have responded by launching almost daily missile and drone operations targeting locations in the Israeli Occupied Territories as well as US military bases and assets across the region.
They have also blocked the strategic Strait of Hormuz to oil and gas tankers affiliated to the adversaries and those cooperating with them.
Iran’s ministers of science and health have also condemned recent military assaults by the US and the Israeli regime on the country’s universities.
The Minister of Science, Research, and Technology, Ali Simayi Sarraf, and Health Minister Mohammad-Reza Zafar-Qandi made the remarks in a joint statement yesterday, which catalogued the assaults that had targeted Iranian universities throughout the aggression that began late last month.
They cited a strike hitting the Faculty of Pharmacy at Shiraz University on March 14 and another one on Isfahan University of Technology ten days later.
The statement additionally made mention of strikes targeting parts of the Science and Technology Campus and the Veterinary Specialised Hospital campus at Urmia University and one that hit Tehran’s University of Science and Technology.
‘These are only some of the regrettable actions carried out by the American and Israeli aggressors against the precincts of Iranian universities,’ they said.
The trade union movement internationally must now urgently intervene in this struggle to support the Iranian workers and students.
In particular, the US, UK and the EU trade unions must call general strike actions now!
Over 500,000 workers and youth, who have just marched through London in support of the Palestinian and Iranian revolutions, have shown that they would answer a call for an international general strike and are ready to defeat world imperialism!
