The prevailing narrative regarding the Persian Gulf is obsessed with a 1940s solution to a 2020s problem. Military analysts love to map out "island-hopping" campaigns across the Greater and Lesser Tunbs or Abu Musa as if we are reenacting the Battle of Tarawa with better optics. They call it a "shooting gallery" for the US. They are wrong. If the US military attempts to seize these rocky outposts, the shooting gallery won't be aimed at the Iranians. It will be aimed at the billion-dollar hulls of the US Navy.
The "lazy consensus" assumes that because these islands are small, they are vulnerable. It assumes that American air superiority and amphibious readiness mean a swift, surgical takeover. This logic is a relic. It ignores the fundamental shift in anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities and the reality of asymmetric attrition. You don't "invade" an island in the Strait of Hormuz; you walk into a sophisticated trap designed to bleed a superpower dry for the sake of a few acres of limestone.
The Myth of the Strategic Foothold
Conventional wisdom says holding the Tunbs allows the US to "secure" the shipping lanes. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of modern geography. The Strait of Hormuz is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point. In an era of long-range precision-guided munitions, holding the ground doesn't mean you control the water.
I have watched planners pour over satellite imagery of Iranian fortifications on Abu Musa, pointing to concrete bunkers and anti-ship missile batteries as "targets to be neutralized." They miss the point. These islands aren't meant to be invincible fortresses; they are bait.
By the time a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) puts boots on the ground, the tactical advantage has already shifted to the mainland. Iran’s "mosaic defense" doesn't rely on holding a specific rock. It relies on a thousand points of decentralized lethality. If the US occupies an island, they haven't won a base; they have volunteered for a permanent siege where the enemy has the home-court advantage and an infinite supply of cheap, "suicide" drones.
The Math of Attrition favors the Cheap
Let’s look at the actual physics of the encounter. To take an island, you need an Amphibious Ready Group (ARG). You’re bringing a $2 billion San Antonio-class landing platform dock into range of land-based mobile missile launchers that cost less than a luxury SUV.
- The Cost Imbalance: A single Iranian Noor or Ghader anti-ship missile costs a fraction of the interceptors fired by an Aegis destroyer.
- Saturation Reality: If Iran launches 50 drones and 20 missiles simultaneously—a capability they have demonstrated in exercises—the probability of a "leaking" projectile hitting a high-value US asset approaches 100%.
- The Repair Gap: A drone hit that puts a hole in a carrier deck or destroys a radar array on a destroyer doesn't just cost money; it removes that asset from the theater for months. Iran can replace a destroyed truck-mounted launcher in an afternoon.
The status quo experts talk about "neutralizing" Iranian capabilities before the invasion. This is a fantasy. Iran’s missile inventory is tucked into "missile cities"—underground complexes carved into the Zagros Mountains. You cannot "SEAD" (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) your way out of a mountain range.
The Swarm is Not a Nuisance
Military journals often dismiss Iran's fast-attack craft as "mosquitoes." They argue that a Phalanx CIWS or a 25mm chain gun will swat them out of the water. This view is dangerously outdated.
I’ve seen the results of simulated swarm attacks where the sheer volume of targets overwhelms the processing power of modern fire control systems. When 60 boats approach from 360 degrees, some carrying C-802 missiles and others acting as remote-controlled IEDs, the "shooting gallery" becomes a chaotic mess of target prioritization errors.
In this scenario, the islands act as "unsinkable aircraft carriers" for these swarms. They provide radar masking and hidden coves. Invading them doesn't stop the swarm; it puts your most expensive assets in the middle of the hornet's nest.
The Sovereignty Trap
There is a political dimension that the "war-game" crowd ignores. The Tunbs and Abu Musa are disputed with the UAE. The moment the US seizes these islands, it isn't "liberating" them; it is becoming an occupying force in a territorial dispute that has lasted decades.
If the US hands them to the UAE, it triggers a permanent state of war between Tehran and Abu Dhabi, destabilizing the very oil markets the invasion was supposed to protect. If the US keeps them, it becomes the face of "Western Imperialism" in a region that is already pivoting toward a multi-polar reality involving China and Russia.
Technology won't Save the Landing Craft
We hear a lot about "Distributed Maritime Operations" and "Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations" (EABO). The idea is to spread out forces to make them harder to hit. But islands, by their very nature, are not "distributed." They are fixed coordinates.
In a conflict, the first thing that dies is the electromagnetic spectrum.
- GPS Jamming: The Persian Gulf is already a hotspot for GPS spoofing.
- Comms Blackouts: How does a small group of Marines on a captured island call for fire when their satellite links are fried by land-based electronic warfare?
- The Drone Factor: Iran’s Mohajer and Shahed series drones aren't just for export to Russia. They are integrated into a local sensor-to-shooter loop that operates faster than the US bureaucracy can approve a dynamic strike.
Imagine a scenario where a US force successfully takes Lesser Tunb. Within six hours, the island is hit by a saturation strike of short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) like the Fateh-110. These missiles have a circular error probable (CEP) small enough to hit a specific building. The "conquerors" are now sitting ducks on a rock with nowhere to hide.
The Wrong Question
People ask: "How would a US invasion of Iranian islands unfold?"
The better question is: "Why would any sane commander trade a multi-billion dollar fleet for a few piles of salt and rock?"
The answer is usually "deterrence." But deterrence only works if the threat is credible and the cost is manageable. An invasion of these islands is a high-cost, low-reward maneuver that plays directly into Iran’s defensive doctrine. They want the US to come close. They want the US to bottle itself up in the narrow channels of the Gulf.
The Brutal Reality of the Strait
If you want to control the Strait of Hormuz, you don't do it by standing on an island. You do it by maintaining "over-the-horizon" dominance and ensuring the global economy isn't tied to a single chokepoint.
The obsession with these islands is a form of military nostalgia. It's the desire for a "clear" victory in an era of gray-zone warfare. If you land on Abu Musa, you haven't won the war; you've just started a grueling, high-tech war of attrition that the US taxpayer is not prepared to fund and the US Navy is not prepared to lose.
The "shooting gallery" is real, but the targets are painted on the hulls of the ships flying the Stars and Stripes.
Stop planning for a 20th-century amphibious assault and start realizing that in the modern Persian Gulf, the land doesn't control the sea—the missile does.
Leave the islands alone. They are graveyards waiting for an occupant.
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