Iran is not fighting this war alone. Although Tehran launches missiles and drones, outside powers help keep the regime alive. Beijing helps it sell and see. Moscow helps it track and target. Kharg is where those lines converge. Ergo, this is not merely an island; it is the place where foreign support becomes Iranian endurance. That is why Washington should stop treating Kharg as a target of opportunity and start treating it as the decisive prize.

Today, Kharg is the regime’s economic center of gravity. Roughly 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports move through the island. In fact, the terminal can store about 30 million barrels and has held around 18 million. Before the war, exports had climbed above 2 million barrels per day. Even in early 2026, Iran was still moving about 1.7 million barrels daily, mainly through Kharg. As a result, the island unequivocally carries the financial burden of the war effort by turning oil into missiles, drones, repression, patronage, and time. For a regime under pressure, time is not a luxury. It is survival.

But Kharg matters for more than economics; it also matters militarily. Striking the island’s military positions while preserving its oil infrastructure is not a contradiction. It is preparation. Air defenses, naval facilities, and command nodes are barriers to control. The terminal is the prize. Once regimes begin to fear collapse, they often torch what they can no longer hold. Saddam did it in Kuwait. Tehran could do the same. For that reason, Kharg should not merely be threatened. It should be secured before the regime can sabotage the very asset that keeps it alive.

That, in turn, leads to the real strategic question. The issue is no longer whether Kharg should be hit. The issue is whether Kharg should be held. Bombing the island would hurt the regime. Holding it could break the regime. Anything less would leave Tehran with the one asset that still converts survival into resistance. The argument, then, is no longer about punishment. It is about possession.

Here, the Iraq parallel becomes useful. This is not a carbon copy, but the sequence is familiar: break the regime’s capacity to resist, secure the revenue-producing infrastructure, prevent scorched-earth sabotage, and shape the postwar balance before chaos does. In war, oil infrastructure is never just economic hardware. It is the hinge between military pressure and political control. On Kharg, possession would matter more than punishment.

From there, the external dimension becomes impossible to ignore. China sits at the center of this logic because it is the principal buyer that keeps Kharg worth defending. Most Iranian barrels leaving the island go to China. This is not passive commerce. It is wartime financing. Every tanker that leaves Kharg helps sustain missile replenishment, drone production, domestic repression, and strategic stamina. Beijing is not merely buying discounted crude. It is helping bankroll Iran’s ability to stay in the fight.

China’s role, moreover, does not end at the cash register. Chinese-linked geospatial tracking reportedly followed US carriers, bases, air-defense systems, and surveillance aircraft tied to operations against Iran. The larger point matters more than the inventory itself. Modern war increasingly belongs to whoever can see first and update fastest. Accordingly, Beijing does not need to enter the war openly to shape the battlefield because it can widen Tehran’s field of vision while financing the regime’s endurance all at the same time.

Russia, meanwhile, plays a narrower but more immediate role. If Moscow is helping Iran track US warships and aircraft (as part of their brand new mutual defense agreement), then it is not offering diplomatic sympathy. It is offering operational value. Russia does not need to fire a shot itself. It only needs to sharpen the picture on which Iranian targeting depends. That alone can help Tehran fight longer and strike more effectively.

Taken together, the structure becomes hard to miss. Iran provides the launchers. China helps fund and map. Russia helps inform. Kharg converts that combined support into endurance. As long as the island functions, Tehran keeps buying time. If the island is taken, the regime loses the mechanism that keeps pressure survivable. That is why Kharg is not just another target. It is the regime’s breathing apparatus.

At that point, the broader strategic payoff comes into view. An American-held Kharg would not only cut Iran’s revenue. It would also place Washington astride the oil artery linking Tehran’s survival to Beijing’s energy appetite. The message to China would be unmistakable: if this oil moves, it moves on American terms. In one move, Washington would weaken Iran, pressure its main customer, shape Gulf energy dynamics, and gain a territorial lever for future negotiations.

Even more important, the deepest blow might be psychological. The Islamic Republic survives on fear, force, and inevitability. It tells its elites and enforcers that, whatever happens, it will endure. Losing Kharg would shatter that myth. Evidently, Tehran can survive sanctions, strikes, dead commanders, and narrative wars. However, what it may not survive is losing the island that turns oil into state power. If Kharg falls, the regime does not just lose money. It loses oxygen, credibility, and the aura of permanence.

That is why the Guantanamo analogy works. The point is not merely occupation. The point is durable leverage. Kharg would become a hardened American foothold on the regime’s most important export artery, denying Tehran the core asset it needs to regenerate power and proving that Washington did not simply punish the regime, but took hold of the mechanism that kept it alive.

In the end, the issue is not whether Kharg matters. The issue is whether Washington is serious enough to act on what that fact means. Kharg funds the war. China helps keep the money flowing. Russia helps sharpen the fight. Break that system, and Tehran does not just lose revenue. It loses the structure that allows it to keep functioning under pressure.

Therefore, if Iran refuses to curb its behavior, abandon its nuclear and ballistic ambitions, and enter serious negotiations in good faith, Washington should stop thinking only in terms of strikes and should start considering seizing this key element for the Ayatollah’s regime.

Indisputably, destroying Kharg would damage the regime. Taking this island, could seriously make it collapse.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)