The Military Hubs
High-angle view of a coastal road and park area featuring a white tower, with large cargo ships anchored in the turquoise sea in the background.
A view of the shoreline on Iran’s Qeshm Island on April 28.Asghar Besharati/Getty Images
Qeshm Island. At a whopping 580 square miles, Iran’s largest and most populous island sits near the Strait of Hormuz and Bandar Abbas, one of Iran’s main ports. Its strategic location makes it the perfect spot for Tehran to advance its regional agenda, while its expansive underground tunnel network and ability to deploy submarines directly into the Gulf have transformed it into a key base of operations for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Qeshm also serves as a staging ground for Iranian forces targeting global shipping. The IRGC uses the massive island, with its several small ports and marinas, to impose Iran’s will on the strait, whether by charging tolls on commercial vessels or attacking ships attempting to transit the thoroughfare.
