Warnings of Iran Invasion Grow as US to Send Up to 5,000 Marines, Sailors to Middle East

In what has been described as a potential "major escalation" of the Trump administration's war with Iran, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reportedly approved a request from US Central Command to move more warships and thousands of Marines to the Middle East following Iran's attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.

Citing three US officials, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the US was sending "an element of an amphibious ready group and attached Marine expeditionary unit, typically consisting of several warships and 5,000 Marines and sailors."

According to the Journal, the Japan-based USS Tripoli and its attached Marines are already headed to the Middle East.

While the Journal did not explicitly report that the operation was tied to the volatile situation in the Strait of Hormuz, it noted that "the move comes as Iran’s attacks on the strait have paralyzed traffic through the strategic waterway, disrupting the global economy, driving up gas prices and posing a major military and political challenge for President [Donald] Trump."

In his first address on Thursday, delivered by a news anchor on Iranian state TV, the country's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said that “the lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must definitely be used" to heighten economic pressure on the US.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has declared that "not a liter of oil" shall pass through the strait, and vowed to attack any ship linked to the US and Israel that may attempt to make the journey.

Iran has reportedly attacked at least six commercial ships in the area since Wednesday, including one marked with a Thai flag that still has three crew members missing. US intelligence sources have also accused Iran of laying mines in the Strait, which Iran has neither confirmed nor denied.

The blockage of the strait, through which about one-fifth of global oil shipments pass each year, has sent the global market into chaos. Prices of Brent crude have surged from under $70 less than a month ago to more than $100 per barrel on the global market, and US gas prices have leaped to $3.63 per gallon on average, up from $2.94 a month ago.

Prices have continued to climb even after the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced its largest-ever coordinated release of oil from nations' strategic reserves on Wednesday to combat what it called "the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market."

Shashank Joshi, the defense editor at The Economist and a visiting fellow at the Department of War Studies at King's College London, said that a deployment of such a large Marine force seems to be "a key indicator of a potential ground operation" in Iran.

Trump said earlier this week that he was "nowhere near" sending troops into Iran even as it ramped up threats to block the strait. But privately, he has reportedly been mulling plans to put "boots on the ground" within Iranian territory to accomplish a number of objectives, though officials have characterized them as limited special-operations missions.

Administration officials have reportedly suggested a commando raid on Iran's nuclear sites to confiscate or sabotage its supply of uranium, according to Axios. They've also considered a plan to occupy Kharg Island, which sits 15 miles off Iran's coast and handles about 90% of its oil exports, serving as an economic "lifeline" for the battered nation.

But Trump has also said that if Iran blocks the strait, "the US Navy and its partners will escort tankers through the strait, if needed." Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Dan Caine, has said the Pentagon is looking at "a range of options" to do this.

In an analysis published Tuesday by Zeteo, Harrison Mann, a former US Army major and executive officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Middle East/Africa Regional Center, suggested that the US may pursue an ambitious plan to "clear Iran’s coastline around the strait" to get tankers moving again.

Mann, who worked under the Biden administration but resigned in protest of its support for the genocide in Gaza, said this plan would require "an indefinite occupation–otherwise missile trucks could just get in position after US forces leave." Doing this, he added, would require "a full-fledged invasion, possibly beyond even the 10,000 or so rapid-response forces at Trump’s disposal."

"All of these ground operations risk high casualties while failing to accomplish their missions," Mann said. "That’s a feature, not a bug. Even if one of these operations met its objectives, troops in peril behind enemy lines demand resupply, evacuation, and revenge, which puts more troops in peril behind enemy lines, and so on."

The movement of more troops comes as the US public expresses strong disapproval of Trump's war with Iran. In a Quinnipiac poll published this week, 53% of registered voters said they opposed US military action against Iran, while just 40% approved.

About 74% said they feared that the war would cause oil and gas prices to rise, and 71% feared that the war would last "months" or longer.

Trump's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who remains one of his top allies in media, said on his War Room podcast that deploying such a large military force "sends a signal to Iran, but it also sends a signal to the American people: This is a major escalation."

Mann said that putting troops on the ground in Iran will only "ensure that Trump can't back out easily, which is exactly what [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, [US Sen.] Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and their ilk need to fracture Iran.

"Bringing this war to an end," Mann said, "requires recognizing it can still get much, much worse, refusing to fall for the promise of 'small special ops raids,' and calling these courses of action what they are: a prelude to forever war."