President Donald Trump said American voters don’t have the stomach to handle the United States taking over Kharg Island as the war with Iran continues with no peace deal in sight.
“My preference has always been [to] take Kharg Island,” Trump told Fox & Friends Thursday morning. “I don’t know that America has the stomach for it, to be honest with you.”
Trump’s comments come on the same day he made a Truth Social post threatening to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s key oil export terminal, and strike Iran again Thursday night as part of an effort to force the Middle Eastern nation to negotiate an end to the war now in its third month.
The president compared taking the island to his daring capture of former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro in early January, effectively putting the Latin American nation under U.S. control.
“We did it with Venezuela,” he said. “Venezuela has worked out great for everybody. We’ve taken millions and millions of barrels of oil out of Venezuela. We brought them to Houston and various other places, Louisiana, where you know refineries that we have that are incredible.”
Despite the fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, Trump promised “bigger” and “more powerful” bombing against Tehran on Thursday night. This comes two days after the U.S. launched strikes against the nation on Tuesday in retaliation for Iran’s downing of an Apache helicopter.
Trump has long wanted to take over Kharg Island, as it would effectively cripple the Iranian government. Tehran relies on Kharg Island to process roughly 90% of its crude oil exports.
The president continued to boast of defeating Iran despite the nation’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, which has driven up global gas, energy, and oil costs.
“They’re finished,” Trump claimed of Iran. “We can walk in there tomorrow. We could take soldiers.”
TRUMP PROMISES ANOTHER ROUND OF STRIKES AGAINST IRAN AND OPERATION ON KHARG ISLAND
But the president stopped short of committing American service members to Iran. “I don’t want to have boots on the ground, but if I wanted to, we could put a small group of soldiers and take over the whole place,” he said.
The Iran war remains vastly unpopular with the American public, which would likely not tolerate committing more soldiers to an overseas conflict. The ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran would effectively end if the U.S. were to take over Kharg Island.