CNN <\/a>reported, citing sources.<\/p>\nTrump earlier said the United States could take control of\u00a0the Iranian island. He\u00a0noted that he\u00a0had long viewed such a\u00a0scenario as\u00a0preferable, while also questioning whether Americans would support a\u00a0prolonged military operation.<\/p>\n
According to\u00a0CNN, the Pentagon had been working on\u00a0the plan for several months. Its implementation, however, was delayed because of\u00a0the high risks raised by\u00a0both Pentagon representatives and administration officials.<\/p>\n
Officials told Trump that such an\u00a0operation would likely require a\u00a0significant number of\u00a0ground troops and could result in\u00a0heavy US\u00a0casualties.<\/p>\n
Inside the Pentagon and the White House, the option was not treated as\u00a0a\u00a0routine course of\u00a0action but as\u00a0a\u00a0last-resort measure at\u00a0the final stage of\u00a0the conflict. CNN\u2019s\u00a0sources assessed that capturing Khark could alter the balance of\u00a0forces.<\/p>\n
Khark lies in\u00a0the northern Persian Gulf and hosts Iran\u2019s\u00a0largest oil terminal.<\/p>\n
On\u00a0June 11, speaking on\u00a0Fox News, Trump warned that strikes on\u00a0Iran planned for the night of\u00a0Friday, June 12, would be\u00a0stronger than previous ones. He\u00a0also allowed for the deployment of\u00a0a\u00a0limited contingent to\u00a0Iranian territory, claiming that a\u00a0small group of\u00a0troops could take everything there.<\/p>\n
The US\u00a0president also said he\u00a0was now less interested in\u00a0an\u00a0agreement with Iran than he\u00a0had been a\u00a0month earlier. According to\u00a0him, Washington could escalate further, although he\u00a0doubted that such a\u00a0move would receive support from the American public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US military officials warned Trump that a plan to seize Iran\u2019s Khark island could require major ground forces…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[3504,34,49707,9601,1403,39,392,49708,343,1537],"class_list":["post-156523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-persian-gulf","tag-cnn","tag-iran","tag-iranian-oil-terminal","tag-khark-island","tag-pentagon","tag-persian-gulf","tag-trump","tag-us-losses","tag-us-military","tag-white-house"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116734734053709904","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}