Above photo: Jim Watson / AFP – Getty Images file.
The US has threatened to capture Kharg Island.
Home to Iran’s oil major export terminal.
NOTE: An Iranian group has been creating Lego-style animated movies about the war. Here is one focused on a US invasion of Kharg Island:
🇺🇸🇮🇷 “Come closer” — New Iranian LEGO animation dropped pic.twitter.com/KFeNH8bso0
— HOT SPOT (@HotSpotHotSpot) March 30, 2026
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has ousted the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Randy George, US military officials announced on 3 April.
War Department spokesperson Sean Parnell issued a statement on X stating that George would be “retiring from his position as the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army effective immediately.”
“The Department of War is grateful for General George’s decades of service to our nation. We wish him well in his retirement,” Parnell added.
George, the army’s top official, was appointed to the post by former US president Joe Biden in September 2023. He previously served as senior military assistant to Biden’s defense secretary, Lloyd Austin.
No replacement for the position of Army Chief of Staff has been named. However, two officials told NBC News that Hegseth is preparing to install Gen. Christopher LaNeve, currently the vice chief of the army, as George’s replacement.
US Army Chief of Staff Randy George was fired by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, sources said, in the latest purge among the Pentagon’s most senior ranks https://t.co/k1qEHLlQbR pic.twitter.com/v5e9Nj62nB
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 3, 2026
According to NBC, Hegseth has long wanted to dismiss George as part of a broader effort to purge the US Army of senior officials appointed by Biden.
According to three US officials, Hegseth fired two other army generals alongside George on Thursday: the chief of chaplains, Maj. Gen. William Green, and the commanding general of Army Transformation and Training Command, David Hodne.
Hegseth, a former Fox News talk show host, has previously fired several other top military officials since Trump appointed him as Secretary of War.
In 2025, he fired Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Kruse had angered US President Donald Trump after the DIA delivered an initial assessment indicating that US strikes on Iran during the 12-day war in June had not destroyed the country’s nuclear facilities.
After the strikes, Trump boasted that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “obliterated” by US bombing, and that reports to the contrary were “fake news.”
George’s ouster comes as Trump is taking the controversial decision to send ground troops to Iran as part of the new war on the Islamic Republic he began alongside Israel in late February.
Trump delivered a prime-time address on Wednesday, claiming that he plans to bomb Iran into the “Stone Age.”
Reuters reported on 30 March that thousands of soldiers from the US Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division had started arriving in West Asia, bringing the total of US military personnel in the region to more than 50,000.
US officials began floating the idea of dispatching ground troops to Iran after just the first week of the war.
NBC reported on 6 March that President Trump was privately expressing “serious interest” in deploying US troops on the ground inside Iran, according to two US officials, a former US official, and another person with knowledge of the conversations.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, the Iran program senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a pro-Israel think tank, suggested at the time that US forces could be used on the ground to facilitate a dynamic between the US and Iran that “mirrors Venezuela.”
In January, Trump ordered US special forces to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. He was replaced by Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodriguez, who now cooperates to sell Venezuela’s oil according to policies established by the White House.
On Wednesday, the US lifted sanctions on Rodriguez, allowing her to work more freely with US companies and investors.
“She has since led Venezuela’s cooperation with the administration’s phased plan to turn the country around, pitching her oil-rich nation to international investors and opening the nation up to private capital, international arbitration, and scrutiny,” NPR wrote.
Lindsey Graham on Kharg Island: “We did Iwo Jima. We can do this.” pic.twitter.com/JQJ5lZdvJ8
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 22, 2026
Regarding US plans for a limited invasion of Iran, the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) noted on Friday that Iran’s Kharg Island is a “tempting target.”
Kharg, located off the coast of mainland Iran in the Persian Gulf, is home to an oil terminal through which the Islamic Republic exports 90 percent of its oil.
In apparent preparations for a ground campaign, the US carried out a large bombing raid of the island on 13 March, hitting more than 90 Iranian military targets, including missile and naval mine storage facilities.
On 29 March, Trump said he was considering seizing the island, telling the Financial Times (FT) that “Maybe we take Kharg Island, maybe we don’t. We have a lot of options.”
Amid the US threats, Iran’s army chief warned on Thursday that “no enemy troops should survive” if Trump orders a ground invasion.
“In the event the enemy attempts a ground operation, no one should survive,” Amir Hatami told state broadcaster IRIB.
