Trump Threatens Escalation Against Iran, Including Seizing Oil Facilities

President Donald Trump is threatening to escalate the current wave of American attacks on Iran even further and potentially dispatch ground troops to seize the country’s main oil export facility even as he is voicing doubts about the American public’s tolerance for increased open hostilities.

The president took to Truth Social early Thursday to declare that the U.S. “will be hitting Iran ... VERY HARD TONIGHT” and warned that American forces would be “taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points” and assuming “total control” of Tehran’s petroleum sector “at some point in the not too distant future.”

He also compared the proposed invasion of Iranian territory to the way the U.S. installed a compliant leader in Venezuela this past January and established close cooperation to resume oil exports from that country while opining on how the change of regime in Caracas has been “working out brilliantly” for both countries.

If carried out, Trump’s threat to have American forces seize Kharg Island would represent a major escalation and a deepening involvement in the war by U.S. forces in the absence of any clear authorization for such force by Congress. It would also be a significant breach of his longstanding campaign promises not to involve the country in further “endless wars” in the Middle East.

But Trump appeared to at least offer himself a small off-ramp to dispatching ground forces onto Iranian sovereign territory later in the morning on Thursday during a meandering phone interview with Fox News.

“My preference has always been to take Kharg Island .... you’d make a fortune, but I don’t know if America has the stomach for it,” he said while speaking on the morning show Fox & Friends.

Trump compared a potential American invasion of Iran’s main oil terminal to the decapitation of Venezuela’s government and replacement of dictator Nicolas Maduro with his more pliable vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, and boasted how that action has “worked out great for everybody” because Rodriguez has allowed the U.S. to import “millions and millions of barrels of oil out of Venezuela.”

“We brought them to Houston and various other places, Louisiana, where refineries that we have that are incredible. They're going 24 hours a day making a fortune, and you know, I like that in this case too, but I'm not sure that America has a long time,” he said.

Trump added that a potential takeover of Kharg Island and Iran’s oil exporting capacity would be “a guarantee if I want to do it” but conceded that it would be “a little longer process” than what has happened in Venezuela.

He also told the Fox News program’s trio of presenters that Iranian forces “have no defense” and “can’t do anything about” any U.S. attacks while their leaders are, in his view, “dying to make a deal” even though negotiations have stalled amid the renewed U.S. attacks.

“We dropped $250 million worth of bombs on them last night. The whole thing is crazy, but and they're, and they're really in submission. They just don't know it yet,” he said.