On the best of days, war is no cake walk. The best laid plans go out the window as soon as the fight begins. The 2026 Iran war is only the latest case in point. President Donald Trump likely expected a Venezuela-style decapitation, but the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps stymied that hope. Trump then placed his hopes on Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, but Ghalibaf was no Delcy Rodriguez. While the Venezuelan vice president had positioned herself to step in after U.S. forces snatched Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, Ghalibaf had no such power: His ambition came without popular or institutional support.
With Iran now again attacking shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. military is edging closer to seizing the islands that the Iranian Navy uses to stage small boat and drone attacks on international shipping. Perhaps the three most strategic islands are Abu Musa and the Greater and Lesser Tonb Islands. Abu Musa sits in the middle of the northern approach to the Strait of Hormuz, while the Tonb Islands sit within the shipping lanes. Their strategic position, combined with the territorial waters that they derive, is the reason Iran seized the islands in 1971, as the British evacuated and prepared to hand them over to the Emiratis. Abu Musa is just 50 miles from the coast of Iran and 40 miles from the coast of the United Arab Emirates. It lies only 10 miles from the Strait of Hormuz, and tanker traffic must pass between it and the Tonb Islands, giving Iran strategic leverage.
After the Islamic Revolution and against the backdrop of the Iran-Iraq War, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps transformed the islands into garrisons. In 2012, then-Guard Cmdr. Mohammad Ali Jaafari visited forces stationed on all three islands and, from Abu Musa, declared to the Gulf Arabs, “We shake the hand of friendship and brotherhood of Islamic countries, especially the countries of the southern Persian Gulf, and we ask them to help each other and with unity and brotherhood to cut the hand of global arrogance [the United States] from the region and ensure the security of the waters and coasts ourselves.”
Should U.S. Marines, or their Emirati counterparts, seize the islands, their immediate concern will be protecting themselves from the inevitable ballistic missile or drone barrage. Abu Musa, however, may present an even greater challenge: For decades, it has been rumored to be one of Iran’s main repositories for chemical weapons. On March 22, 1995, the Pentagon announced growing concern over both the troop buildup on Abu Musa and the chemical weapons stored there, though Iranian authorities subsequently denied this.
Nevertheless, when the Emiratis quietly considered a deal about 15 years ago to resume control of the island itself but allow the Iranians control over the territorial waters, the proposal floundered due in part to the need for decontamination due to poor chemical weapons storage.
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While Operation Desert Storm veteran James Deitch highlighted the general threat of chemical weapons use against American service members who take the islands, his concern bypassed the fact that many of the weapons are or have been stationed there. Even if no chemical weaponry is used, planning should not omit providing Marines sent to Abu Musa with the ability to protect themselves from the island’s massive environmental contamination.
U.S. Marines can likely take Abu Musa in less than a day, should they so choose. But, just as troops slowly succumbed to cancers due to Agent Orange exposure during the Vietnam War and burn pits during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, chemical weapons residue on Abu Musa is a threat that planners should not ignore.
Michael Rubin is director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum, a distinguished fellow at India’s Usanas Foundation, and a contributor to Beltway Confidential.