{"id":900743,"date":"2026-04-21T18:13:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T23:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/21\/fox-news-host-urged-trump-to-seize-kharg-island-ahead-of-us-strikes-as-it-happened\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T18:13:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T23:13:42","slug":"fox-news-host-urged-trump-to-seize-kharg-island-ahead-of-us-strikes-as-it-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/21\/fox-news-host-urged-trump-to-seize-kharg-island-ahead-of-us-strikes-as-it-happened\/","title":{"rendered":"Fox News host urged Trump to seize Kharg Island ahead of US strikes \u2013 as it happened"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Fox News host urged Trump to seize Kharg island ahead of US strikes<\/h2>\n<\/header>\n

Just 24 hours before Donald Trump<\/strong> ordered the bombing of Iran\u2019s Kharg island, a vital oil hub home to 10,000 people, one of the president\u2019s favorite cable news pundits suggested that seizing the island could end the war and make it safe for shipping through the strait of Hormuz to resume.<\/p>\n

Iran exports about 90% of its crude oil through facilities on the island, which is about 20 miles off the mainland in the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe might not get what we got in Venezuela, but as long as Iran\u2019s completely disarmed, and can\u2019t threaten America and the strait with missiles, drone and nukes, the president will take the win,\u201d Jesse Watters told his Fox News viewers Thursday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also have Kharg island, 15 miles off Iran\u2019s coast, their main export terminal, essentially the country\u2019s cash register,\u201d Watters added. \u201cKharg\u2019s Iran\u2019s oil lifeline; if we seize it, it\u2019s over. That option remains on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"aerial<\/picture><\/div>
<\/svg><\/span>A European Space Agency satellite image of Iran\u2019s Kharg Island, which hosts the country\u2019s main crude export terminal, on 2 March.<\/span> Photograph: EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1980, nine months after 52 American were taken hostage at the US embassy in Tehran, the columnist Jack Anderson revealed<\/a> that Kharg Island was the primary target of a US invasion plan presented to then president Jimmy Carter. \u201cKharg Island is the site of the oil terminal through which 90 percent of Iran\u2019s crude is pumped into tankers for export,\u201d Anderson wrote. \u201cNot long after the U.S. hostages were seized in Iran, contingency plans were developed for an assault on Kharg Island.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Carter was defeated the New York Times reported<\/a> in a 1981 account of the hostage crisis that the Pentagon plans for military action against Iran, included a naval blockade, mining its harbors, and seizing of the huge oil depot on Kharg Island. \u201cThe closest Mr. Carter came to ordering such action,\u201d he told the Times, \u201cwas on Nov. 20, 1979, 14 days after the seizure, when the Ayatollah was publicly threatening to put the hostages on trial for espionage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carter\u2019s successor, Ronald Reagan, whose campaign was believed by some Carter aides to have cut a secret deal with Iran\u2019s leaders to prolong the hostage crisis and prevent their releaser in a pre-election \u201cOctober surprise\u201d that could have swayed the 1980 election, also left Kharg untouched during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough Iraqi forces struck some \u200cterminals \u2060and tankers during the eight-year war, Kharg remained largely operational and damage was typically repaired quickly, demonstrating that disabling it would require sustained, large-scale attacks,\u201d JP Morgan said in a note reported by Reuters on Monday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This concludes our live coverage of US politics for the day, but for updates on the US war on Iran<\/a>, please visit our Middle East crisis live blog. Here are the days developments:<\/p>\n

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