“AMERICA JUST MADE A MOVE THAT WILL FOREVER ALTER THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ – THE WORLD IS NOT READY FOR WHAT COMES NEXT!”

Iran already had to deal with two Marine
Expeditionary Units heading toward its territory.

Now, the US is about to do something historic.

A
powerful force is heading to the Strait of Hormuz, and it will change the way the Strait is run
forever.

Elite paratroopers are en route.

They’re preparing to dominate Hormuz.

Iran isn’t
ready for what’s coming, as the US is moving up a gear in Operation Epic Fury.

Following
weeks of speculation about their deployment, the 82nd Airborne Division is being deployed
to the Middle East.

The Pentagon announced the news on March 24, and it amounts to the US
sending over 2,000 of its most elite paratroopers into the war zone that has been created in
Iran.

This is a huge escalation by the US, and it’s another hint that the US may be drawing
closer than ever to putting boots on the ground, perhaps on Kharg Island as a means of reopening
the Strait of Hormuz.

The Washington Post reports that US officials have approved written orders
for the deployment, which have been sent to the 82nd Airborne Division’s Fort Bragg headquarters,
along with being sent to soldiers who are part of the unit’s 1st Brigade Combat Team.

This came
in the wake of verbal orders having already been delivered, two sources close to the situation
have told the outlet.

Many of the soldiers who have received the orders are part of the 82nd
Airborne Division’s Immediate Response Force, and it’s here that we start seeing all of this
get very serious.

Why? The clue is in the name, as the Immediate Response Force has been created
specifically to deploy within 18 hours of notice, and it is versatile enough to handle almost
any ground-based operation handed to it.

Taking airfields, such as the one on Kharg
Island, is among the force’s many remits, as is seizing critical infrastructure, such as the
oil pipelines and terminals that are on that very island.

Task and Purpose offers more information
about the 82nd’s Immediate Response Force, noting that the members of that force change every
six months, as the responsibility switches between a trio of brigades.

Upon being designated as “IRF
1,” that brigade’s responsibility for half a year is to be the readiest of the three to be deployed.

The structuring goes even deeper than that, as within the selected brigade are a battalion and
a company, dubbed “IRB 1” and “IRC1” respectively, who will be the frontrunners for deployment at a
unit level.

What we see here is that the US has created a force that is purpose-built to respond
to emerging crises.

What’s happening in the Strait of Hormuz right now is nothing if not a crisis,
especially as Iran’s blockade of the strait has led to oil and gas price chaos.

Pressure is being
placed on the US by its international partners, along with non-partners who are being
affected by the issues in the strait, and the deployment of the 82nd Airborne Division
may be America’s answer in terms of how it’s going to relieve that pressure.

Kharg Island will
likely be key.

But what the US may have planned there could end up being an escalation too far in
Operation Epic Fury.

As for the 82nd, speculation has been rife for weeks that something like this
was about to happen.

On March 6, The Washington Post reported that a big change of plans led to
rumblings that the division was about to head out to Iran.

Members of the 82nd Airborne Division had
been scheduled to take part in a major training operation, only to have those plans be abruptly
canceled, leading to elite paratroopers being told to stay put in North Carolina, rather than
joining their colleagues in Fort Polk, Louisiana, for the exercise.

The Pentagon was cagey at
the time.

All it told reporters was “Due to operations security we do not discuss future
or hypothetical movements.

” Now, we know why the training was cancelled.

The US had already
been mulling options up to and including putting boots on the ground following the devastation of
Iran’s military infrastructure during the opening days of Operation Epic Fury and Operation Roaring
Lion.

With the Strait of Hormuz becoming a major problem for the US on the global geopolitical
level, what started as a training cancellation has moved to full-on deployment, and it’s here
where all of this gets serious.

We still don’t know what the 82nd will do once it arrives in
the Persian Gulf region.

But the odds are that a ground assault on Kharg Island is high on the
agenda.

That’s one option, at least, but it seems increasingly likely that the US views occupying
Kharg Island as the key to taking control over the Strait of Hormuz problem.

The 82nd has the ability
to threaten targets in the Gulf region without having to directly transit the dangerous strait,
Axios reports US Marine Colonel Mark Cancian, who is now a senior advisor with the Center for
Strategic and International Studies’ International Security Program, as stating.

Kharg Island falls
into that remit, as the 7.

7-square-mile island is located to the northwest of the strategically
vital strait, making it far enough away for the 82nd to avoid the strait entirely, though
close enough, and as you’ll soon find out, important enough to make capturing the island
worthwhile for the US when it comes to reopening the strait.

Kharg Island is vital for Iran.

Lying
just 20 miles off the country’s coast, the small island has a population of just 20,000 people,
and most of those people are oil workers.

That highlights what makes this island so vital for
Iran, as those oil workers oversee a terminal that is the main point of departure for 90% of the oil
that Iran sells to other nations.

That oil is the Iranian regime’s economic lifeline.

In 2024, which
is the most recent year for which we have concrete figures, Iran generated $43 billion from its oil
sales, which was a $1 billion increase over the previous year.

But the really important piece
of the puzzle here, according to GIS Reports, is that this $43 billion accounted for 57% of
Iran’s total export revenue in 2024.

So, with 90% of Iran’s oil moving through Kharg Island before
it can be sold, it’s clear that the island is a major vulnerability to the regime.

The logic here
is obvious.

Take Kharg and the US strips away more than half of Iran’s export revenue, which
would in turn cripple its economy.

By sending the 82nd Airborne Division into the Persian Gulf,
the US seems to be laying the groundwork for an occupation that has been rumored ever since
airstrikes tore through Kharg Island’s military infrastructure on March 13.

But behind the bravado
lurk some big issues if the plan is to have the 82nd Airborne Division attempt to take Kharg
Island.

Those problems could change everything.

Before we dive deeper into what they are, this is
a quick reminder that you’re watching The Military Show.

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Now, as impressive as the 82nd
Airborne Division and its Immediate Response Force undoubtedly are, especially in terms of
their speed of deployment, the division isn’t exactly set up for something like taking a piece
of territory like Kharg Island.

At least, that’s according to Cancian, who tells Axios that the
division is classified as light infantry, which means that it would be “vulnerable while landing
and if attacked by armor.

” Adding that there is a lack of nearby support for the division, Cancian
adds, which seems to reference the fact that Iran and its missile launch sites are a lot closer
to Kharg Island than any friendly US bases, and it’s clear that America’s plan for applying
pressure on Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is more complicated than it first appears.

The US
has taken steps to overcome the armor challenge, at least.

We mentioned earlier that airstrikes
against Kharg Island’s military infrastructure have already taken place.

Presumably, that
involved the destruction of the island’s armored units, though it’s also worth noting that these
initial strikes took place about two weeks ago at the time of this video’s publication.

Could
Iran have moved more armor onto the island by now? It’s possible, and that’s a challenge for the
US Another counter to the argument that the 82nd Airborne Division won’t be able to take Kharg
Island is that it’s not the only unit that is heading to the Persian Gulf region.

Ahead of the
announcement of the 82nd’s deployment, the US has already sent a pair of Marine Expeditionary
Units, or MEUs, in Iran’s direction.

The USS Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group, which includes
three warships and 4,500 personnel, including the 31st MEU and its 2,200 members, is already en
route from Okinawa, Japan.

They’re being joined by the 11th MEU, which has embarked from San Diego
with the USS Boxer Amphibious Ready Group.

That MEU has a similar number of members, so what
we’re seeing here is that the US is actually deploying several more thousand soldiers to the
Persian Gulf than the unleashing of the 82nd Airborne Division would suggest.

The involvement
of the MEUs would change everything about a Kharg Island takeover.

These are amphibious
assault groups that exist to overcome the types of challenges that Cancian says the 82nd will
face if it attempts to take Kharg Island alone.

Time Magazine notes that MEUs are also often
the first ground forces to arrive at the scene of a conflict, and that they combine hundreds of
infantry troops with armed vehicles, helicopters, fighter jets, and artillery – practically
everything that could be needed to tackle an armored response on Kharg Island by Iran.

MEUs
are contained forces designed to handle almost any situation, and the US is sending two of them
to Iran, along with the 82nd Airborne Division.

What we may be seeing here is the US attempting
to account for another of the challenges that come with putting boots on the ground on Kharg Island,
which is that it’s not necessarily taking the island that will be the big problem.

Behind that
challenge lies the far bigger issue of holding Kharg for as long as is needed to put pressure on
Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.

As huge a bargaining chip as taking Kharg Island would deliver
to the US for the Strait of Hormuz crisis, Iran has potential responses to the US plans.

One of those responses could be to slice off its collective nose to spite its face.

In other words,
Iran could emulate the actions of Saddam Hussein in the Kuwaiti oil fields during the Gulf War and
simply burn the Kharg Island oil facilities to the ground before the US gets its hands on them.

That would take away the bargaining chip and give the US forces a massive fire to deal with from
which they can’t easily move upwind, especially if Iran times the destruction so that it occurs after
American forces have occupied.

However, it would also mean that Iran destroys oil facilities that
could take years for it to rebuild, which plunges the country into a multi-year economic crisis, no
matter the outcome of Operation Epic Fury.

That would be Iran’s nuclear option.

Another is to take
advantage of the fact that Kharg is close to the Iranian coast and about 140 miles away from the
nearest US assets in Kuwait City.

Resupplying the 82nd and the two MEUs tasked with taking Kharg
Island would be a challenge for the US, as would the fact that units stationed on the island
become sitting ducks for Iran’s missiles.

Yes, Iran has lost most of its missile launch sites.

Roughly 75% of them as of March 5.

But it still has isolated and mobile launchers that it can
roll out, use to fire missiles, and then send back into hiding.

Kharg Island is small enough
that even a handful of strikes could be enough to devastate US troops, especially if there are
hitches in setting up air defenses.

These are all challenges that the US can overcome.

The MEUs
en route to the Gulf region still haven’t arrived, and the 82nd Airborne Division is behind them.

If Kharg Island is the goal, the US is building up an appropriately sized force for taking
and holding the island.

It’s likely that air defenses are being prepared, perhaps in Kuwait
City, to send into Kharg Island immediately after the occupation, too.

And US aerial assets
continue to patrol the Iranian coastline, missile launch sites are being destroyed, which helps
to mitigate the sitting duck challenge.

Still, the question has to be asked… Is it really worth
sending the 82nd Airborne Division and two MEUs into Kharg Island? To the US, the answer is
likely a resounding yes, though there is also another reason why all of this ground power
could be heading to Iran.

Before we explain what that is, the Kharg Island occupation would
be all about reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

We’ve already told you that the island would
be a major bargaining chip, and it’s one that the US would be delighted to be able to play,
given what’s happening in the strait right now.

This single waterway has been mostly blocked off
by Iran since the start of Operation Epic Fury, which is an issue, given that 20% of the world’s
oil and liquified natural gas passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has been playing the one
major card that it has well, and we’ve seen the results over the past few weeks.

According to
Hellenic Shipping News, fewer than 100 merchant ships have managed to sail through the strait
between the beginning of March and March 23.

For context, almost 140 ships sailed through the
Strait of Hormuz daily before Operation Epic Fury began.

Now, the average is down to five or six,
and most of those are sailing under Iran’s flag or are linked to Tehran’s regime.

Iran has also
started to look at the Strait of Hormuz situation as a way to pull in a little extra money.

In a
March 24 report, The Telegraph said that Iran has created regime-approved routes through the Strait
of Hormuz that just happen to funnel ships into what amounts to a waterborne toll booth system.

Fees for safe transit climb as high as $2 million, the outlet reports.

Iran might claim that
means it has reopened the strait.

The US, and likely the rest of the world, would counter
by pointing out that these fees are so ludicrously high that they’re clearly designed to prevent
all but the most desperate merchant ships from passing through.

It wouldn’t be accurate to
claim that taking Kharg Island would outright solve the Strait of Hormuz problem.

But it would
help.

The billions that the US could take out of Iran’s economy by controlling that island’s
oil infrastructure, using its MEUs and the 82nd Airborne Division, would create more pressure on
the Iranian regime.

That pressure would mount on top of the economic concerns that have led the
regime to the position that it finds itself in right now.

The US could offer access to Kharg
in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran would have to seriously consider that
offer.

But so far, we’ve looked at the boots on the ground option.

There is another.

As
Time reports, the US claims that ceasefire talks between the US and Iran have tentatively
started.

Well, maybe.

There’s a lot of confusion about those talks right now.

According to US
President Donald Trump, the talks are happening because Iran is completely desperate to make a
deal following the destruction of so much of the regime’s military infrastructure.

On March 24,
Trump also declared that making sure that Iran has no nuclear weapons is a key American focus,
and that the current regime has promised that it won’t build any nukes.

All of this is reportedly
on top of a 15-point plan for a ceasefire that the US has created, which AP News says may include
nonstarter negotiation topics related to Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support of
regional militias and proxy groups.

So, progress, right? Not according to Iran.

The Iranian military
claimed on March 25 that the US is failing to achieve its goals and that it is essentially
negotiating with itself.

The spokesperson for the Unified Command of Iran’s Armed Forces,
Ebrahim Zolfaqari, has said as much, declaring, “Has the level of your inner ⁠struggle reached the
stage ⁠of you negotiating with yourself?” before adding, “Don’t call your failure an agreement!”
The BBC adds that many in Iran don’t believe that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is willing
to negotiate with the US, as it is too steadfast in its fundamentalist beliefs to allow even
the destruction of huge swathes of its military infrastructure to sway them from its goals.

It’s difficult to untangle what is really going on when both sides are sending such different
messages.

And that may reveal the real reason why the 82nd Airborne Division is heading to the
Persian Gulf.

The occupation of Kharg Island is still very much a possibility.

But what we may be
seeing right now is that Trump is buying time with his talks about negotiations, which he is using to
purposefully create confusion in Iran.

After all, Iran’s regime is in a rough spot.

Fracturing
has clearly occurred after multiple levels of leadership were taken out, so communication
within that regime may not be as on point as it needs to be.

Maybe some in the regime are talking
to the US, while others think no negotiations are happening.

Who knows? And that’s the point.

Trump may be playing into that situation while more US troops head toward Iran.

As all of
this is happening, the 82nd is sailing.

It’s going to be joined by two MEUs.

Even if Kharg
Island isn’t on the agenda, this represents the US sending a clear message to Iran’s regime.

If negotiations aren’t actually happening, then they need to start soon.

The US is showing
Iran that it is ready for any eventuality, up to and including putting boots on the ground,
and it is strengthening that particular part of its posture in the Persian Gulf region by the day.

Something historic may well be about to go down in Iran, and it’s what Iran fears most.

The US
has batted the ball into the Iranian regime’s court.

How the regime responds will determine
what happens next.

If the US is planning to take Kharg Island to force the loss of Iranian
control in the Strait of Hormuz, it is setting up well for the possibility.

Before announcing
the deployment of the 82nd Airborne Division, the US unleashed massive bunker-busting bombs
on underground missile sites throughout the Strait of Hormuz coast.

Those strikes alone
could reopen the critical waterway, and you can find out all about them in our video.

And if you enjoyed this video, make sure you subscribe to The Military Show so you don’t
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