By Lim Tean
At Dien Pien Phu, the Vietnamese obliterated the French forces and ended French colonialism of the country.
The French thought they were in an impregnable fortress surrounded by high mountains. They wanted to lure the Vietnamese forces into this natural fortress and destroy them. They underestimated the wily Vietnamese who laid siege to this fortress, and hauled their artillery up the high mountains to shell the French below. French morale collapsed and they surrendered.
This is what I expect to happen if the American marines and 82nd airborne division land on Kharg island and attempt to hold it. They will be subjected to continuous fire from the Iranians from the mainland, which is only 28 km away and from the thousands of drones which the Iranians will launch against the invaders. Kharg is a small island and there will be little cover against the Iranian missiles and drones. The Americans will die in the thousands and many may even be captured when the Iranians counterattack. And then the Iranians will parade them before the cameras like they did with the American embassy hostages of 1979.
The Americans have made out Kharg island to be this gem, which if taken away from the Iranians, would lead to the collapse of the Iranian regime. Don’t be misled by the American fairy-tale.
Kharg island is important to Iran because it is the main export terminal of Iran. The island is surrounded by deep waters and supertankers can load at Kharg. But the island does not itself produce oil. The oil loaded onto the vessels all come from oil fields located on the mainland. They are piped underwater to oil terminals on the island for storage before loading.
Now that the Iranians know the Americans are coming, you can be sure they would turn off the tap. Oil would stop flowing into Kharg island. The Iranians would use other smaller ports to export oil. They can also use pipelines, such as the one running to the Jask port on the Gulf of Oman for export. Their export volumes would reduce, but this is wartime and no one expects the export volume to remain unaffected during a war. And if the volume is affected, it will drive up the price of oil globally, which is Trump’s nightmare. That is why he lifted sanctions on Iranian oil, to try to control the price surge. So taking Kharg is a double-edged sword for the Americans.
One thing is for sure- control of Kharg has zero impact on the re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz, which is 350 km away. The Iranian anti-ship missiles can be launched 600 km away and still hit vessels trying to break the closure of the Strait, if the shipowners are stupid enough to attempt such a breakout
America and Trump are in a desperate situation. There is nothing they can do to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. For the foreseeable future, it will be totally under Iranian control. You have to feel for countries like Australia which are already running out of oil. All of us would be hit with much higher oil and food prices in the coming weeks.
And for this, we can thank the stupidity of America, and people like Trump, Hegseth and Lindsay Graham, who decided to attack Iran when there was zero reason to do so.
