An increasingly likely scenario for ground troops is that Trump will seek to take three Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf claimed by the UAE - Abu Musa, and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs.
Both pro-Israeli voices in the US and prominent Emirati accounts have been pushing this idea publicly for the past 10 days.
Several motivations and objectives may lie behind this potential move:
1. Abu Musa in particular is a strategic island, situated in the middle of the Straits. But it may no longer be critical given the manner in which Iran controls the Straits - via missiles. It would have been 20 years ago if the Straits had been blocked solely through mines. So controlling it will likely not be the silver bullet Trump is hoping for.
2. Is the idea to trade the control of these islands for the opening of the Straits? Assuming that such a trade is even possible, it would depend on the cost of not seizing the island, but keeping it. The US Navy has kept itself 3,000km away from Iran to avoid being hit by Iranian missiles. Abu Musa is only 70km from the Iranian shorelines - the Tunbs are even closer. Iran would rain down missiles and drones, likely killing a large number of US troops. As a result, Iran would likely not have to trade the island. The US would simply abandon it because keeping it is too costly.
3. However, going for the islands does carry some messaging and political benefits. The GCC states have been split by the war, with Oman and Qatar striking their separate deals with Iran. But the GCC has a unified position on the three islands in support of the UAE. Making the war about the islands may be motivated by an attempt to push Oman and Qatar in support of the US/Israeli war, but under the false rubric that it is now about "liberating" the islands.
4. This would then also add a new political messaging. Given the UAE's likely endorsement and participation in the attempt to take/retain the islands, this would be an attempt to reframe the war from one that an isolated America and Israel are fighting alone, to one in which there is a US-Israel-Arab alliance against Iran. However, while that political messaging and reframing may succeed, it does not translate into a recipe for actually winning the war. That problem will not only remain unresolved, but it will become even more challenging based on Point 2 above.
In sum, it appears that an increasingly desperate Trump is lowering his ambition. Instead of winning the war, he hopes to expand the number of stakeholders. And by that, spread out the blame for this debacle.
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