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This is a guest essay by Nachum Kaplan, a longtime journalist and commentator who writes the newsletter, “Moral Clarity.”
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
The Western foreign policy establishment speaks about the Strait of Hormuz as though it were an immutable law of nature.
Iran controls the Strait, the world depends on it, so the world must tiptoe around Iran’s whims forever.
This analysis is repeated so often that it has acquired the status of revealed truth. Analysts state it solemnly on television. Diplomats declare it at conferences. Retired portly generals nod gravely beside widescreen maps. The implication is always that Iran possesses a permanent strategic veto over the global economy.
This is hogwash.
Iran possesses leverage, not destiny. Its so-called chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz is not a natural law. It is the product of infrastructure choices — and choices can change.
The next big story out of the Middle East may not be another war but the gradual construction of pipelines, rail corridors, ports, and trade routes designed to reduce the world’s dependence on one narrow waterway and therefore on Iranian intimidation.
The panic surrounding Hormuz obscures the obvious fact that countries do not like being blackmailed — especially rich, oil-exporting ones that have watched Tehran threaten shipping lanes as a central pillar of its geopolitical strategy for decades.
The response is already underway.
The Strait of Hormuz handles about 20 million barrels of oil per day, about a fifth of global petroleum liquids trade. That sounds apocalyptic because it is. Yet what matters is not the current arrangement; it’s whether alternatives exist, and whether, if so, they can be expanded.
Newsflash: They can.
Saudi Arabia already possesses the East-West Petroline, a monstrous 746-mile-long (1,201 kilometers) pipeline system built during the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War precisely because the Saudis understood that relying entirely on Hormuz was strategic insanity. The line connects the oil-producing Eastern Province to Yanbu on the Red Sea. Its theoretical capacity is roughly five million barrels a day.
The United Arab Emirates built the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline (also known as the Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline), allowing Emirati oil exports to bypass Hormuz and emerge directly on the Gulf of Oman. Capacity is about 1.5 million barrels daily.
Iraq has the Kirkuk-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline (also known as the Iraq–Turkey Crude Oil Pipeline), a 600-mile-long (970 kilometers) pipeline that runs from Kirkuk in Iraq to Ceyhan in Turkey. It is Iraq’s largest crude oil export line, although years of sabotage and political dysfunction have limited its usefulness.
Already the mythology begins to crack.
The Gulf states have spent decades preparing for the day when Iran tried to weaponize geography too aggressively. Nobody builds billion-dollar bypass pipelines for decorative purposes. Tehran has made the unimaginative bet that such alternatives can replace only part of the Strait’s traffic.
This misses the point. The goal is not to eliminate every drop of Hormuz traffic, but to steadily to reduce Iran’s leverage until its threats become less terrifying and impactful. Put simply: It shrinks the gun that Iran is holding against the world economy’s head and turns it into an inconvenience.
Iran’s rulers understand this. It is why they react so furiously to every normalization agreement, every regional infrastructure project, every India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor1 proposal, and every Gulf integration initiative. Tehran’s power depends heavily on instability and dependency. Stable alternative trade architecture threatens the entire model.
Consider what happens if Saudi Arabia expands its Petroline’s capacity further. Or if the United Arab Emirates doubles Fujairah export capabilities as currently planned. Consider expanded Iraq-Turkey export routes. Think about new rail and energy corridors running westward toward Mediterranean terminals. Imagine India linking into Gulf logistics systems that avoid vulnerable shipping lanes. Consider Red Sea infrastructure hardening and pipelines through Oman and Gulf Cooperation Council energy grids.
Suddenly Hormuz stops looking like an eternal chokehold and starts looking like a declining monopoly. Monopolies can be imposing, but they can be fragile too.
The Soviet Union believed it controlled Eastern Europe forever. Britain once believed the Suez Canal guaranteed imperial permanence. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) once believed it could permanently dictate global politics through oil embargoes. History is littered with powers that mistook temporary leverage for permanent supremacy.
Iran looks to be next on that list.
The amusing part is that Tehran itself may accelerate this because threatening to close Hormuz encourages investment elsewhere; every missile launch increases political support for bypass infrastructure; maritime harassment pushes Gulf states toward deeper cooperation; and every Houthis drone attack on Red Sea shipping convinces global powers that redundancy is no longer optional but essential.
Iran is running a protection racket that cannot stop reminding the neighborhood why protection is needed.
Even energy markets are beginning to adapt psychologically. During previous Gulf crises, the mere possibility of Hormuz disruption caused panic because markets assumed there were no alternatives. Increasingly, investors now understand that while disruptions are painful, the world possesses partial workarounds and is building more.
That matters enormously.
Strategic power depends not just on capability, but on credibility. The more the world believes Hormuz can be bypassed, the weaker Iran’s coercive threat becomes even before a single additional pipeline is completed.
And pipelines are only part of the story. Trade routes themselves are evolving.
India, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and European partners have discussed trade corridors connecting India to Europe through the Gulf and Mediterranean. China continues building overland rail connections across Eurasia. Gulf ports are expanding rapidly. Rail freight across the Arabian Peninsula is becoming more realistic. Even Iran itself has attempted to reduce its own vulnerability by expanding northern routes through the Caspian Sea and rail links toward Central Asia and China.
That irony deserves appreciation with the finest French champagne and Iranian caviar. Even the regime constantly boasting about its ability to strangle Hormuz is simultaneously building alternatives because it knows chokepoints are dangerous for everyone. This is the hidden truth beneath all the rhetoric: Iran fears dependency too.
Of course, there are enormous limitations too.
Qatar’s liquefied natural gas exports remain heavily dependent on Hormuz. Red Sea routes face threats from the Houthis in Yemen. Pipelines themselves are vulnerable to missile attacks and sabotage. Ports can become bottlenecks. Insurance markets are prone to panic. Infrastructure projects take years. Geography cannot be fully repealed.
Yet it does not need to be problem-free. It is about a Middle East redesigning itself around the assumption that dependence on Hormuz is intolerably dangerous. That is why Gulf states are aligning with Israel despite some of their public rhetoric. Israeli technology, intelligence, missile defense, and logistics integration all strengthen alternative trade networks.
It is also why Saudi Arabia invests so aggressively in Red Sea infrastructure, and why the United Arab Emirates transformed Fujairah (one of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates) into a major bunkering and export hub. It is why Iraq keeps trying to revive Mediterranean export options despite endless political dysfunction. It is why India views Gulf connectivity as a strategic priority rather than an energy issue.
And it is why Iran’s regional proxies focus so obsessively on threatening shipping routes. In other words, Tehran understands the danger. The regime’s greatest fear is not military defeat, but strategic irrelevance.
A world that can route around Iran is a world in which the Iranian regime loses much of its geopolitical premium. It ceases to be the gatekeeper of global energy flows and becomes what it actually is: a large, economically troubled regional power with aging infrastructure, massive corruption, internal unrest, demographic problems, and an economy distorted by sanctions and clerical authoritarianism.
The mythology of Hormuz has long benefited Tehran because it encouraged Western fatalism. Policymakers behaved as though Iran’s leverage was permanent and accommodation was unavoidable.
Infrastructure, however, changes politics. Railroads changed empires. Canals changed trade. Air power changed naval strategy. Fiber-optic cables changed finance. Pipelines change geopolitics. The Gulf states understand this, as do India, China, Israel, and even Iran itself. Only the ossified Western foreign policy establishment still speaks as if geography handed the Iranian regime an eternal divine right over global commerce.
It did not.
The Strait of Hormuz remains important, but that does not mean Iran has an unbreakable chokehold. It means the world is in transition and incentives are changing. Once countries believe escape is possible, they invest accordingly. Once investors believe alternatives are viable, capital flows accordingly. Once governments believe dependency can shrink, foreign policy changes accordingly.
That process is already underway.
The future may not belong to whoever controls the Strait of Hormuz, but to whoever makes the Strait less and less important.
The India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor is a planned connectivity project that aims to bolster economic development by fostering connectivity and economic integration between Asia, the Persian Gulf, other parts of the Middle East (including Israel), and Europe.
You forgot to mention alternative technologies, solar, wind, hydroelectric, hydrogen and atomic energy.
Drop fossil fuels. The world will be a better cleaner safer place to live.
Thanks for some optimism. I had no idea these possible Iranian work-arounds were in existence. Hopefully this info gets to those who are souring on trump in time for the midterms.