“What we want to do is to get such massive oil reserves in Iran out of the hands of terrorists,” White House advisor Jarrod Agen said in an interview with Fox Business, News.Az reports, citing Aljazeera.
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“Ultimately, we’re not going to have to worry about these issues in the Strait of Hormuz,” he said, referring to the strategic Gulf chokepoint vital for global energy.
“We’re going to get all of the oil out of the hands of terrorists,” the official said.
Agen compared Iran to Venezuela, which has effectively handed control of its oil industry to US energy companies following Washington’s capture of President Nicolas Maduro.
US President Donald Trump has so far refrained from commenting on Iran’s substantial natural resources, which include the world’s third-largest oil reserves and control of over half of the world’s biggest gas field.Agen’s comments come amid discussions about a potential attempt by the US military to seize control of Kharg Island, which hosts Iran’s largest oil export terminal.
The island, located in the Gulf about 30 kilometres off the Iranian mainland, facilitates as much as 90 percent of the country’s oil exports and is vital for Iran’s economy.
Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, has described seizing the island as a “no-brainer” for the US.
Taking control of the country’s energy resources could allow the administration to further choke the Iranian government’s revenues, he told The Washington Post.
This comes as US news media indicated that Trump is moving closer towards deploying ground troops inside Iran – a move he has long publicly ruled out.
NBC News reported on Friday that the US president has “expressed serious interest” in sending US troops into Iran during private conversations.
Two sources told the broadcaster that Trump is not considering a large-scale invasion but the deployment of a small unit of troops to conduct strategic operations on the ground, according to the report.
