Could U.S. attack Iran’s Kharg Island as it sends more troops?

The U.S. is preparing to send thousands more troops to the Middle East, prompting speculation about a ground attack on Iran amid conflicting accounts of peace talks.

The Pentagon is reportedly preparing to send about 3,000 troops from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East, alongside two Marine Expeditionary Units, to assist military operations in Iran.

Military experts said that the number of additional troops being deployed to the region appears to be consistent with plans for discrete and time-limited operations — rather than a sustained ground campaign.

It puts two strategic Iranian islands in the spotlight and raises questions about a potential move to seize the Islamic Republic’s nuclear materials.

“All announcements regarding troop deployments will come from the Department of War. As we have said, President Trump always has all military options at his disposal,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told CNBC in an emailed statement.

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis estimated that there were likely only around 4,000 to 5,000 “trigger pullers” or ground troops being deployed.

“That is enough to seize a small target for a period of time. You’ve got to understand, even the 82nd Airborne Division, it’s an immediate reaction force to provide very quick reaction on the ground but only in advance of something bigger coming in behind that,” Davis, a senior fellow and military expert at Defense Priorities, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday.

“I have seen no evidence that any kind of a force of size has been even considered, much less alerted, prepared, equipped, trained up that you would need to go. … That takes months of time to do.”

Qeshm Island, off Iran’s southern coast, is the largest island in the Persian Gulf. Located near the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, the arrow-shaped island has emerged as a potential U.S. target amid reports that anti-ship missiles, mines, drones and attack craft are being kept there in underground tunnels.

Davis said the second target could be Kharg Island, the centerpiece of Iran’s oil industry, while a third scenario is a raid to capture more than 400 kilograms of reprocessed material, provided the U.S. can locate this and it is sufficiently concentrated to make a raid viable.

Often referred to as its “oil lifeline,” Kharg Island is a coral island located about 15 miles off the coast of mainland Iran.

It is estimated that around 90% of the country’s crude exports pass through it before…