The White House Must Control Certain Islands

There are big and small islands that the White House must control. Where are they?;

Chet Nagle ——Bio and Archives--March 19, 2026

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In 1988, Donald Trump was interviewed by the The Guardian with the purpose of promoting his book, The Art of the Deal. America was still angry about Iran seizing the U.S. Embassy staff in Tehran in 1979, so when the interviewer asked Trump about his future ambitions, he answered that he might run for president and, if he won, he would insure global “respect” for the United States.

He also had words for Iran. “One bullet shot at one of our men or ships, and I’d do a number on Kharg Island. I’d go in and take it.”

Where And What Is Kharg Island?

Kharg island is a treeless eight-square-mile island 15 miles off Iran’s Persian Gulf coastline. It is located about 300 miles from the Strait of Hormuz and is Iran’s largest asset and its largest liability. The oil terminal was built by the American giant, Amoco, during the Shah’s rule in the late 1950s when huge modern tankers proved too large to sail into the shallow waters of Iran’s southern coastline. Instead, crude oil is now piped to Kharg from the mainland and from there loaded onto modern tankers. Even now, despite the war, the crude terminal appears to be operational with tankers seen alongside the island in the last few days.

Petras Katinas, a research fellow in the Royal United Services Institute says, “Seizing the island would cut off Iran’s oil lifeline, which is crucial for the regime. Of course, with shipping via the Strait of Hormuz now stopped, they cannot sell oil anyway, but looking ahead, seizure would give the U.S. leverage during negotiations, no matter which regime is in power after the military operation ends.”

Katinas notes that seizing Kharg will require U.S. troops to put “boots on the ground,” an act that President Trump has “seemed hesitant to undertake,” even though the island is defended by old surface-to-air missiles and anti-ship missiles that could easily be destroyed by U.S. forces.

Nevertheless, Trump said in a 13 March social post, “I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island. However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision.”

True to his word, he “reconsidered his decision” after Iran attempted to mine the Strait of Hormuz using small boats. Trump destroyed all the military targets on Kharg where a unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was based and armed with Silkworm anti-ship missiles, Eisenhower-era Raytheon MIM-23 surface-to-air missiles, and Soviet-made SA-5 air-defense missile sites.

Then Trump ordered the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, based in Japan, to deploy to the Middle East with its 2,400 Marine contingent aboard the amphibious ship USS Tripoli. The Tripoli was spotted south of Taiwan yesterday, putting it a week away from Iranian waters.

Trump has signaled that the toxic phrase “boots on the ground” does not worry him regarding domestic politics. He refused to damage Kharg’s oil infrastructure or elsewhere in Iran. He said he would not do it “for reasons of decency.”

The Marines on USS Tripoli will strike the small archipelago of Iranian islands that cluster close to the Strait of Hormuz. Because its navy has been destroyed, Iran is using small boats at night from those islands to mine the strait. The Marine Corps has often been described as “America’s 9-1-1 force.”

Another Expert Speaks

Former Pentagon official Michael Rubin, now an Iran expert at the American Enterprise Institute said in January that, “Should he take Kharg, rather than destroy it, he can not only ensure the regime can never again pay the salaries of its bureaucrats and soldiers, but also that, in the future after regime change, he can ensure that the new Iranian regime can finance its own rebuilding.”

American control of Kharg should also give the U.S. leverage over China that has ignored international sanctions on Iranian and Russian oil and currently buys a significant amount of global crude exports.

Guy Laron, an expert in international politics at the University of Jerusalem, said last weekend in a post on X, “Having the U.S. control the Persian Gulf from which China imports roughly half its crude and a third of its gas is a strategic catastrophe for Beijing,”

“Boots on the ground,” regime change and rising gasoline prices are toxic words in American politics, but those words are no longer protecting Kharg Island from Trump seizing it -- destroyed military infrastructure and all.

Diego Garcia was discovered by the Portuguese in the 16th century and for most of its history was a dependency of Mauritius. In 1965 it was separated from Mauritius and became part of the new British Indian Ocean Territory. The only economic activity 0n Diego Garcia was production of copra until the early 1970s, when the plantation workers and their families were moved to Mauritius. Smaller numbers were moved to the Seychelles and Great Britain. The remaining population is 4,000 U.S. and British military and contract civilian personnel. The removal was done to enable construction of a U.S. base established by an agreement with Britain in 1966 that remains in effect until 2036. Diego Garcia is America’s only military base in the Indian Ocean. It is like U.S. bases on Hawaii are for Pacific operations, where aircraft, ships and submarines can visit and replenish stores and weapons.

That was why the UK-US Navy Support Facility was built. While studying the map below think about long-range U.S. bombers.

Even though located in the British Indian Ocean Territory, the base on Diego Garcia is operated by the U.S. Navy and hosts U.S. Air Force personnel. Its facilities include a deep-water pier, a long runway for bombers, and excellent support infrastructure.

On 20 February Starmer denied a request from Trump to use the long runway at the UK airbase RAF Fairford, and the long runway on Diego Garcia to attack Iran.

They spoke on 21 February. The following day, 22 February, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to withdraw his support for a deal that would see sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, the island chain that is home to the UK-US base on Diego Garcia, handed over to Mauritius in return for a 99-year lease on the military base.

That reminds me of Britain’s turnover of Hong Kong to China in 1997. The deal required China to allow Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy, a capitalist system, and legal rights under the “one country, two systems” framework. It was to last 50 years until 2047. Three years later, in 2020, China passed the Chinese National Security Law that led to dismantling of democratic institutions, arrest of activists, closure of independent media, and a loss of Hong Kong’s autonomy.

The UK said China was in a state of “ongoing non-compliance” but did nothing about it--except give 3 million Hong Kong citizens the opportunity for British citizenship after 5 years of residency. If they could afford to get to the UK.

The UK government bill to formalize a 35 billion pounds rental deal for Diego Garcia with Mauritius was paused in parliament after Trump changed his mind. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said that the plan will not go ahead without U.S. agreement. Why? Because the U.S. would have to pay the rent, one way or another.

Without RAF Rainford or Diego Garcia the U.S. did attack Iran on the morning of 28 Feb.

Then on Sunday evening, 1 March, Prime Minister Karmer reversed course on the U.S. use of RAF Fairford and Diego Garcia to attack Iran. He said his position had changed because Iran launched a wave of retaliatory missile and drone attacks on a range of targets in the Middle East, one hitting a UK airbase in Cyprus. In the early days of March Starmer agreed the bases could be used by the U.S. for the “specific and limited defensive purpose” of destroying Iran’s missiles “at source.”

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Trump said Starmer was too slow to change his mind, adding: “It took far too much time. Far too much time.”

Then Trump went on his social media platform and described the truth about Diego Garcia. He posted, “I have been telling Prime Minister Keir Starmer, of the United Kingdom, that Leases are no good when it comes to Countries, and that he is making a big mistake by entering a 100 Year Lease with whoever it is that is “claiming” Right, Title, and Interest to Diego Garcia, strategically located in the Indian Ocean. Our relationship with the United Kingdom is a strong and powerful one, and it has been for many years, but Prime Minister Starmer is losing control of this important Island by claims of entities never known of before. In our opinion, they are fictitious in nature. Should Iran decide not to make a Deal, it may be necessary for the United States to use Diego Garcia, and the Airfield located in Fairford, in order to eradicate a potential attack by a highly unstable and dangerous Regime -- An attack that would potentially be made on the United Kingdom, as well as other friendly Countries. Prime Minister Starmer should not lose control, for any reason, of Diego Garcia, by entering a tenuous, at best, 100 Year Lease. This land should not be taken away from the U.K. and, if it is allowed to be, it will be a blight on our Great Ally. We will always be ready, willing, and able to fight for the U.K., but they have to remain strong in the face of Wokeism, and other problems put before them. DO NOT GIVE AWAY DIEGO GARCIA!

At least for the duration of the war, Diego Garcia will operationally remain in American hands. Afterwards the government in Britain may change, as it should, and the gift of Diego Garcia to Mauritius will be forgotten--before China figures out a way to get it.

Another distant possession of the Kingdom of Denmark, the tiny archipelago of the 18 Faroe Islands, wants to be their own nation. The Greenland crisis complicated that--for now.

The Faroes are home to 55,000 people and sits in the middle of an Atlantic waterway at the threshold of the Arctic between Iceland and Scotland. It is called the “GIUK Gap” and takes its name from the countries that surround it: Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom. The gap is 200 miles across at its narrowest and is frequented by NATO patrols that increased last year. It is also frequented by Russian nuclear submarines originating from Murmansk, Russia’s main submarine base in the Arctic.

Troy J. Bouffard, director of the Center for Arctic Security and Resilience at the University of Alaska Fairbanks said the Faroes are “disproportionally important.” Though the Faroes have the population of a small American suburb, he added, they sit “right in the middle of one of the most important transit points for our main adversary.”

China is also interested in the Faroes. In 2019 China offered to use Huawei to modernize the Faroes telephone network in exchange for in increase in mutual trade. The U.S. government put enormous pressure on Faroese politicians to not use Huawei, a security risk, and islands then chose a European supplier.

In recent years, according to data from the Faroese Foreign Ministry, increasing numbers of U.S. submarines and ships from other NATO nations have appeared in their ports.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, most European nations shunned Russian vessels. But not the Faroes. Russian fishing boats have been docking in the Faroes for years and still do, despite concerns of Faroe politicians who worry about those trawlers cutting undersea cables in the Baltics and Scandinavia. One politician in the Faroe Parliament said, “without NATO, the Russians would take us if they wanted before breakfast tomorrow.”

Unlike Greenland, sparsely inhabited and without a significant economy, the Faroes don’t rely on Danish subsidies because they have a humming economy and a high standard of living. Restaurants serve fermented mutton, a Faroese specialty, and their salmon farms export a billion dollars’ worth of fish to a global market. Traffic runs easily through the islands’ tunnel network, and they have even built a traffic circle under the sea.

Nevertheless, the leaders of the Faroes are longing for autonomy. They want to strike their own deals with foreign nations and the last few years the yearning for independence has grown. Aksel V. Johannesen, the Faroes’ Prime Minister said, “Greenland and Denmark are in a bad situation, but there is a broad political agreement that our relationship with Denmark must change.”

Hogni Hoydal, former Faroese foreign minister and a leading voice for independence said, “The old Cold War is coming back, and we are at the center.”

He is right. A new nation of the sons and daughters of Vikings would be a magnificent ally of the United States. President Trump can envision that.

He must now plan a relationship with the Faroes that materializes his vison.

There are about 55,000 Kalaallit in Greenland and they live on subsidies of the Kingdom of Denmark -- unlike the 55,000 Vikings living on the Faroes. When President Trump offered a million dollars to each Kalaallit and a real economy if they agreed to have the United States assume the sovereignty of Greenland, NATO went berserk even though America is NATO in all but name. But NATO wanted to defend the old Cold War order and sent a few troops to Greenland as if they expected a U.S. invasion.

Let’s see how Denmark has treated those Kalaallit, 85% of Greenland’s population.

A New York Times September headline said, “Denmark Forced Contraception on Greenlandic Girls, a Scathing Report Confirms.” The story said “In the 1960s and 1970s, and to a lesser degree in the decades that followed, Danish doctors implanted IUDs in thousands of Greenlandic women and girls, in many cases without their permission.

“It was part of an official government campaign, carried out by Denmark for decades, that was intended to control the growth of Greenland’s population. The scandal stands as a painful symbol of what Greenlanders consider generations of mistreatment by the Danes, and the report’s findings come at a delicate time.”

CBS reported in January that Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederick Nielsen told reporters in Copenhagen that, “If we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the EU.” Nielsen was born in Greenland but is not a Kalaallit. I guess the Kalaallit don’t get to vote, despite being 85% of the population.

What’s at stake? Plenty. Greenland is in a strategic fight to control the Arctic, and it has the eighth-largest reserve of rare earth elements in the world (the USA ranks ninth). That’s just what can be mined in Greenland today. Estimates are that it has 24 times more in reserves under the ice. Those reserves go untapped because of Greenland’s 2021 ban on mining uranium.

Arctic Rim Nations Prepare For A New Cold War

Driven by melting polar ice that will open new sea lanes and allow the exploitation of previously inaccessible oil and gas fields, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States are all strengthening their military capabilities in the Arctic region

The Epoch Times tell us that in 2007 Russia planted a Russian flag on the North Pole seabed and, in the following years, revitalized more than 50 old Soviet military installations. The Russian presence in the Arctic now includes six army bases, 10 radar stations, 14 airfields, and 16 deep-water ports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in November 2025, “It is important to consistently strengthen Russia’s positions in the Arctic, comprehensively develop our country’s logistics capabilities, and ensure the development of a promising Arctic transport corridor from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok.”

According to an August 2025 report from the Atlas Institute for International Affairs, Russia’s coast frames more than half the Arctic Ocean, and it has more icebreakers, including nuclear-powered ice-crushers, than the rest of the world combined. The United States, in contrast, has no bases directly on the Arctic Ocean. It has five bases in the Arctic, four in Alaska, and Pituffik Space Force Base in Greenland.

In 2018 China declared itself a “near-Arctic state,” (whatever that means) stating that it would be “an important stakeholder in Arctic affairs” in building what it called a “Polar Silk Road,” an access ramp to its global Belt and Road Initiative.

A 2024 RAND Corp. analysis highlighted that the Chinese Communist Party has been increasing its Arctic presence since the 1990s, with state-sponsored Chinese companies investing in oil, gas, mineral exploration, infrastructure, and in developing trans-Arctic Sea routes.

Juan Carlos Lascurain-Grosvenor, CEO of Grosvenor Square Consulting Group, told The Epoch Times “Too much trade still depends on a handful of chokepoints and jurisdictions that can be disrupted politically, militarily, or through sanctions,” he said. Arctic routes offer an additional axis for energy, bulk commodities, and strategic cargo, which in turn reduces systemic risk.”

Grosvenor went on to say, ocean trade is considered the backbone of the global economy because it’s the most cost-effective way to move bulk amounts of heavy goods. Control over what are often referred to as “maritime chokepoints” -- like the Panama and Suez canals -- is vital because hostile regimes can restrict access to these critical waterways and drive up the cost of goods or create shortages. If Russia or China are allowed to “set the rules in the Arctic,” the consequences could be negative and long-lasting.

Russia and China are developing arctic sea routes, like the Transpolar Sea Route, a route across the North Pole that is shorter than the Northwest Passage or Northern Sea Route. A Chinese icebreaker was one of the first ships to use this route in 2012.

After Trump ends Iran as the main nation supporting terrorism, he must contain our adversaries--China and Russia. To do that, he must control islands like the Faroes, Greenland, and Diego Garcia.

Chet Nagle is an experienced analyst and commentator on international commerce, geopolitics, national security matters, the Middle East, and strategic communications. He has been on radio, has appeared in documentary films and has been a guest on television news programs. His columns have appeared in the Daily Caller, The Hill, Roll Call, and many other publications. He is a contributing editor for ANDmagazine.com and the European Security & Defense magazine.

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