Authored by Scott Walden via E&E News,

One of President Donald Trump’s most potent moves for crippling the Iranian regime may involve seizing a tiny island where gazelles run free near oil infrastructure.

The 5-mile strip of land known as Kharg Island is home to Iran’s most important oil facility, an export terminal in the Persian Gulf that handles up to 90 percent of the nation’s crude.It’s a cornerstone of Iran’s economy and a major source of revenue for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, a pillar of the regime that experts say could put down the kind of public uprising that Trump has called for.

If Trump intends to intensify pressure on Iran outside of missile strikes and bombings, seizing Kharg Island would deprive the regime of a key funding source for controlling the population, said Michael Rubin, a senior Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq in the George W. Bush administration. He said he has been communicating with White House officials about the strategic importance of the island.

“If they can’t sell their own oil, they can’t make payroll,”said Rubin, who is now a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

“No matter how much we bomb, there’s not going to be regime change until we fracture the Revolutionary Guard, and if this can be a fairly nonviolent way of doing it, all the better,” he added.

Oil is the lifeblood of the Revolutionary Guard.About half of the nation’s $50 billion oil industry is controlled by the force,Reuters has reported. That includes a ghost fleet of oil tankers that take its sanctioned crude abroad, mostly to China.

Rubin, who has been in contact with administration officials about seizing Kharg, said his recommendations have been circulated within the National Security Council. He believes Trump is relying on a small circle of advisers, and it’s not clear if they’re aware of the island’s strategic importance, Rubin said.

“If they themselves aren’t familiar with Kharg, then it doesn’t matter what the State Department desk or the CIA knows about Iran,” he said. “It’s not going to percolate up.”

Neither the White House nor the National Security Council responded to requests for comment.

Source: ZeroHedge News