Bypassing the Strait of Hormuz and Neutering a Nuclear Iran

Iran’s recent escalating exploitation of its sway over the Strait of Hormuz has precipitated a historic response. The joint efforts by Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to substantially expand their overland capabilities together with the coordinated State Department pushing American energy companies to build major land-oil transit alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz reflect a shared vision of insulation from maritime blockades.

For decades, the global energy market has effectively been held hostage by Iran’s dominion over the 21-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz, which straddles the coast of Iran and carried roughly 15 million barrels of crude oil every day before the outbreak of the 2026 U.S.-Israel-Iran war. And this figure amounted to 20% of the total global output.

But the catastrophic Iranian blockade of the Strait over the past months has brought home the reality that this system was untenable. Nor is the push to bypass Hormuz limited to the Gulf. Iraq, which for years had been hobbled by its almost total reliance on foreign routes, is deep in discussions with U.S. energy companies to take advantage of the bypass efforts. Efforts are also progressing to expand pipelines running from Basra and Kirkuk in Iraq to Ceyhan in Turkey and the port of Baniyas in Syria.

The strategic implications of these and other similar projects cannot be overstated. For a good part of a century the Iranian regime’s ultimate leverage against the West and its regional neighbors was the credible threat that it could instantly paralyze the global economy by mining or blocking the Strait of Hormuz.

Plainly, as these alternative initiatives come online, that leverage evaporates. That is, if Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iraq can export the bulk of their crude without ever putting a tanker in the Persian Gulf, an Iranian blockade of Hormuz morphs from a global economic catastrophe to an isolated, manageable disruption.

The Gulf states and others similarly threatened by Iranian oil blackmail are demonstrating that the best defense is not merely a naval response but infrastructural independence. The era of Iran’s manipulating the fate of the Middle East through exploitation of the Strait of Hormuz is finally coming to an end.

We are also constrained to note that Iran’s continuous weaponization of the Strait of Hormuz is the definitive argument against allowing Iran to achieve nuclear-weapons capability. Over 20% of the world’s petroleum production passes through the Strait, and if a non-nuclear Iran was prepared and able to hold global markets hostage through maritime extortion, a nuclear-armed Iran would possess unchecked immunity to shut down global trade almost at will without fear of military retaliation.

So, in a very real sense, Iran’s behavior with respect to the Strait of Hormuz is not a separate geopolitical issue – it is a preview of its likely foreign policy under a nuclear umbrella. The world has already caught a glimpse of the extortion, volatility, and lawlessness Tehran is willing to deploy when it possesses conventional weapons. Giving a regime that treats global trade routes as hostage-negotiation tools the ultimate weapon is an unacceptable risk to global peace. Iran cannot be contained. It must be prevented from acquiring a nuclear weapon.