Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., urged President Donald Trump on Sunday to order U.S. Marines to seize Iran's Kharg Island, invoking one of the bloodiest battles of World War II to make his case for a ground operation in the Persian Gulf.

The remark, delivered as the U.S. enters its fourth week of military operations against Iran with 13 service members killed and roughly 200 wounded, drew immediate backlash from fellow Republicans who called the comparison reckless.

Graham, a retired Air Force Reserve colonel, told host Shannon Bream that controlling Kharg Island would cripple the Iranian regime financially.

"Keep it up for a few more weeks, take Kharg Island where all of the resources they have to produce oil, control that island, let this regime die on a vine," Graham said.

When Bream cited an Atlantic analysis warning of ballistic missile strikes, drone attacks and limited resupply, Graham was dismissive.

The battle Graham mentioned stands as one of the bloodiest in Marine Corps history. The fight for Iwo Jima, a volcanic island roughly 700 miles south of Tokyo, raged from Feb. 19 to March 26, 1945, and produced staggering losses on both sides.

American forces suffered more than 26,000 casualties during the 36-day campaign, including nearly 7,000 killed. A Japanese force of roughly 20,000 soldiers fought from an elaborate network of underground tunnels and fortified bunkers, refusing to surrender. Fewer than 1,100 of them survived.

It was the only major engagement of the Pacific campaign in which Americans lost more troops, killed and wounded, than the enemy they were fighting. The cost of taking an eight-square-mile island stunned military planners and shook public confidence in the war effort.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday during a briefing that President Donald Trump “is doing this for you” when asked about how young voters should react to domestic gas costs’ drastic increase rising due to the ongoing military operation in Iran.

Leavitt was asked about young voters’ impression of Trump considering the current economic and military landscape. Youth voters swung dramatically towards Trump in the 2024 presidential election—closing a wide margin that was enjoyed by Joe Biden in 2020—based largely on the economy and immigration.

“President Trump is doing this for you—he’s doing this for young people so that we are no longer threatened by a rogue terrorist regime in the Middle East that seeks to kill the brave men and women who serve our country in the Middle East—many of them young men and women themselves,” Leavitt said.

She added that “President Trump finally had the courage to step up and do what’s right by our national security, by our homeland security.”