Be sure to Click LIKE at the bottom of this commentary, and share it everywhere!! By Craig Andresen – The National Patriot – Commentary
What I’m about to suggest will, no doubt, set liberal’s hair on fire, and it will probably rankle more than a few on the right side of the political aisle as well but I’ve been watching Operation Epic Fury and Operation Rising Lion pretty closely, and I think things are about to change.
So far, this military action has been a strategic stroke of brilliance. It’s been a unique blend of coordinated attacks between our military and that of Israel relying on the greatest collection of intel ever assembled between the CIA and Mossad. The rapid but well-measured attacks that started with stand-off strikes that took out the Iranian regime’s top leaders in the first 30 seconds of action and decimated Iran’s command and control headquarters within the first 48 hours, followed by the steady destruction of Iran’s navy and air force.
As targets related to Iran’s missile and drone capabilities were identified, they too were blasted into oblivion while Iranian regime replacements, and the replacements for the replacements were systematically eliminated either in groups, or one by one.
As Iran’s air defense systems were blown away, it paved the skies for stand-in raids by U.S. and Israeli bombers which then began to target more and more ground-based Iranian entities like underground bunkers and drone cities as well as above ground missile production facilities and ammo storage sites. It has literally been a master class in 21st century warfare against a terrorist regime that has relied on various campaigns of death and destruction along with a number of proxy armies for the past 47 years.
A month of steady and hard bombardment has Iran and whatever is left of their regime desperate enough to use their dwindling military resources to strike against their regional neighbors in the hope that doing so would turn those neighbors against both the U.S. and Israel…but Iran completely misread the room. Those Arab Nation neighbors have had it with Iran, and they are no longer afraid to say so in public, which leaves Iran clinging to their last straw…and as straws go, it happens to be a big one.
Kharg Island.
Kharg Island sits in the Straight of Hormuz, and it is the point from which roughly 20% of the world’s oil passes out of the region. Kharg Island is also Iran’s primary oil exporting terminal from which at least 90% of the regimes income is loaded onto tankers for shipment to places like Russia and China. With drone factories in Iran being bombed out of existence one after the other, their ability to raise revenue by selling them to Russia has all but dried up, leaving as their only source of income oil exports and control over the Straight of Hormuz which they have been using to blackmail both oil and cargo tankers into financing Iran’s struggling war machine over the past couple of weeks.
Nearly two weeks ago, the U.S. sent most of Iran’s military stations and personnel on Kharg Island straight to hell in a massive bombing campaign…but not all of them. The U.S. was also very careful NOT to hit the oil pumping and storage facilities on Kharg Island knowing what having that available for a much friendlier future Iranian government would mean in stabilizing the region. But the threat of the destruction of those oil facilities remained a possibility should Iran decide to keep up their fight.
As I said…I believe things are about to change.
From the start, President Trump has said “no boots on the ground,” but as the situation evolves, so too must the strategy of the Commander in Chief. The question which now must be asked is…bombs, boots or both?
Here’s the thing…if Iran loses Kharg Island, their last source of revenue with which to fund not only this war, but future terroristic actions along with the ability to resupply their rogue proxy armies simply evaporates. They can’t control the Straight of Hormuz without Kharg Island, they can’t export oil without Kharg Island, they can’t blackmail other countries that need to use the Straight of Hormuz without Kharg Island and they won’t be able to pay or supply their military personnel without Kharg Island.
To say they won’t put up much of a fight to keep control of Kharg Island would be one of the greatest miscalculations in military history. Iran will fight like badgers in a burlap bag to hold onto Kharg Island, but what they most fear is already on the way.
The United States Marines.
We learned, at about the same time as we struck Iran’s military components on Kharg Island, that Marine Expeditionary Unit consisting of roughly 2,500 U.S. Marines and accompanying landing and support craft had been dispatched towards Iran. A MEU is the smallest air–ground task force in the Marine’s bag of tricks, but it is also something to be feared by our enemies. Imagine alligators with two heads and no butt-holes. MEU’s are twice as mean. But why send boots if boots on the ground was never an option? Well, because boots on the ground never being an option was never an option. I believe it was always on the table, as should always be the case when planning military action.
Liberals are fond of claiming that Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth is a fool, and that President Trump went into all of this without a plan. Neither could be further from the truth. While I believe that President Trump would rather not put boots on the ground, I also believe the contingency to do so to win the peace through a show of overwhelming force was always a part of the plan.
The Army’s 82nd Airborne, a rapid-response U.S. Army infantry division specializing in securing key objectives, such as airfields or hostile areas is also enroute to the Middle East which will also light up liberal hairdos, but when winning is the goal, you bring everything you have to the theater…not just the highly agitated alligators.
For the past week, our A-10 Warthogs and AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships have been pounding Iranian targets along the coast of the Straight of Hormuz destroying bit by bit Iran’s ability to launch attacks against shipping through the Straight or against our naval assets in the region. Iran’s ability to use fast-boats to lay mines or attack ships is fading by the day because, as Secretary Hegseth said, we have reached an agreement with Iran to share the waterways…and Iran get’s the bottom half of the sea. I believe that that first MEU will arrive in the region in the next few days, if they’re not already there, and we now know that a second MEU is also on the way.
I also believe that the pounding Iran has been taking from the A-10’s and the Apaches will continue…along the coast…while heavier elements, like the B-1’s and B-52’s are about to bring the boom to more inland Iranian assets meant to disrupt shipping through the Straight of Hormuz. I also expect to hear about more targets aside from the oil facilities on Kharg Island being hit, and hit hard.
If Iran doesn’t cry “uncle,” and I doubt that they will, I expect the Marines to land on, take over and control Kharg Island. That second MEU, which contains about another 2,000 two-headed alligators will, I believe, serve as the back-up or rotational force to the first MEU, and the reason for putting those boots o the ground would be two-fold. First, open the Straight to shipping and protect both cargo and oil tankers coming in and out of the Straight. Primarily, that would ease market tension almost overnight and the side effect of that would be making both Russia and China dependent on our good graces for a resumption of oil shipments.
Second, the U.S. Marines would be there to secure, not only for the aforementioned friendly future Iranian government, the ability to jump-start their economy while bringing stability to the region.
There is of course a chance that Iran, backed into a proverbial corner facing the end of their control over the Straight and of Kharg Island could just attack and destroy the Kharg oil facilities themselves once whatever remains of the regime realizes they can’t even afford a fart in a falafel factory.
When asked last week by a reporter whether or not he had any plans to put boots on the ground, President Trump responded, “If I did, I wouldn’t tell you.” To be clear, when President Trump said at the onset of all of this that we would not put boots on the ground, I believe that was more for misleading the Iranian regime than it was for the American liberals or the namby-pambies who will no doubt say “he lied.” Our military isn’t there to just sit around and look pretty. Trump knows that and as he said last week, “I’m really not afraid of anything,” He knows that winning isn’t sterile, and that there’s a good chance that some American service personnel could be lost in action.
President Trump also knows that kicking the can further down the road is not winning, and win we must.
Those of you who have no idea how we attain peace through strength or what winning requires might just want to sit this one out because the answer to the question, “bombs, boots or both” is BOTH.
That’s the bottom line.
Copyright © 2026 Craig Andresen / thenationalpatriot.com all rights reserved
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For more political commentary please visit my RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS partner Diane Sori’s blog The Patriot Factor to read her latest article:
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