Thanasis Petras
International Correspondent
Chief Editor & Publisher — Diethni.gr
The war between the United States and Iran is changing more than the military balance in the Middle East. It is accelerating a deeper geopolitical realignment that could, over the coming years, reshape the routes through which the region’s oil, gas and goods reach international markets.
For Washington, the challenge extends beyond responding to Iranian military pressure. It concerns the protection of international commerce and the construction of a more resilient regional economy—one less exposed to disruption at a single maritime chokepoint.
For decades, American foreign-policy planners understood the strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz. Much of that assessment rested on scenarios involving war, blockade or restrictions on shipping. The conflict has made those risks immediate.
Iran can disrupt commercial movement, push up insurance and transport costs and unsettle international energy markets without achieving a complete, prolonged closure of the strait. Mines, attacks on tankers, missile and drone threats, and uncertainty over crew safety can be enough to discourage shipping companies from making the passage.
Tehran does not need to seal Hormuz completely. It needs to make the crossing dangerous and expensive enough for commercial operators to avoid it. That is precisely why the American response matters beyond the region: defending freedom of navigation protects an international economic interest.
A global economy exposed to one narrow passage
Under normal conditions, roughly 20 million barrels of oil and petroleum products pass through Hormuz each day—approximately one-fifth of global consumption. The strait also carries a substantial share of international liquefied natural gas trade, particularly exports from Qatar.
This concentrates enormous economic significance in a narrow stretch of water between Iran and Oman. Tehran cannot match the United States in conventional military or economic power, but geography gives it leverage over energy supplies serving Asia, Europe and the Gulf states.
Brent’s rise above $90 a barrel during the July escalation illustrates how quickly disruption can affect markets. The consequences extend to inflation, manufacturing costs, transport and household budgets far beyond the Middle East.
The lesson for Washington is that naval deterrence, although essential, cannot be the entire answer. Keeping large volumes of merchant shipping moving through an environment of mines, missiles, drones, fast boats and coastal weapons is demanding even for the world’s strongest military.
American leadership can address this vulnerability on two fronts: protecting shipping today and supporting alternative routes that reduce the consequences of disruption tomorrow.
A strategy with military and economic dimensions
The immediate objective is to restore reliable maritime access and prevent Iran from turning commercial traffic into a permanent instrument of pressure.
US Central Command announced the resumption of its blockade on traffic entering and leaving Iranian ports from 14 July. Its statement distinguished that operation from other regional shipping, which it said US forces continued to support.
Should the crisis persist, further American operations against Iranian naval facilities, surveillance systems, coastal missile capabilities and supporting infrastructure remain possible. A wider ground operation would carry substantially greater military and political risks and should not be assumed.
The strategic objective, however, need not depend on an open-ended military campaign. Washington’s longer-term opportunity is to reduce the value of Hormuz as a tool of coercion.
If Gulf energy exporters obtain sufficient alternative access to the Red Sea, Arabian Sea and Mediterranean, Iran’s geographical leverage would diminish. Hormuz would remain important: no new network can easily replace such a large, established route. But additional infrastructure could enable markets to keep functioning when passage through the strait is threatened.
That would be a constructive use of American influence—combining security commitments, diplomacy and private investment to strengthen the resilience of allies and trading partners.
The pipelines that could change the map
Some bypass infrastructure already exists. Saudi Arabia’s East–West pipeline transports crude towards Yanbu on the Red Sea. The United Arab Emirates has a pipeline connecting its oil-producing region from the north with Fujairah to the southeast, outside Hormuz.
The US Energy Information Administration has identified these routes as partial alternatives, while stressing that their spare capacity cannot replace all the volumes normally moving through the strait. Spare capacity also changes as pipelines are used more heavily.
The next stage would involve a broader network.
Iraqi proposals include routes connecting the Basra oil region with Mediterranean outlets through Syria and with Turkey’s port of Ceyhan. Other ideas involve Basra–Aqaba in Jordan and an outlet towards Oman’s port of Duqm on the Arabian Sea. These routes remain at different stages of discussion, planning or development; their strategic attraction should not be confused with assured construction.
A restored Iraq–Syria oil corridor ending at Baniyas would be particularly significant. It could provide Iraqi crude with a western outlet without requiring passage through either Hormuz or the Red Sea.
Interest from American energy companies would reinforce the commercial dimension of these proposals. It would not establish the existence of a unified, secret US plan. Rather, it would indicate the possibility of convergence between business opportunities, allied energy-security needs and Washington’s regional objectives.
A reported Goldman Sachs assessment projected that effective bypass capacity could exceed 14 million barrels a day by the end of 2028 if planned projects and expansions proceed. That is an ambitious, conditional forecast—not capacity already available.
Financing, security and cooperation among multiple governments will determine what can actually be built. Yet the scale of the proposals suggests that diversification could become a major regional investment priority.
Israel, Syria, Jordan and Turkey seek a role
Energy corridors are more than engineering projects. They create transit revenues, long-term commercial relationships, political dependencies and new requirements for protection.
Syria could become a route to the Mediterranean, provided security and political conditions permit sustained investment. Jordan could strengthen its position as a transit state linking Iraq and the Gulf with the Red Sea. Turkey seeks to reinforce its role as an energy bridge between the Middle East and Europe.
Israel offers another potential route. Energy Minister Eli Cohen has described a proposal for an approximately 700-kilometre pipeline from Saudi Arabia to Eilat, connecting with the existing Eilat–Ashkelon infrastructure and providing access to the Mediterranean. He said the idea had been presented to the United States.
Such a project would require deeper political cooperation between Israel and Arab partners. It therefore illustrates an important opportunity for American diplomacy: infrastructure could give regional cooperation a tangible economic foundation.
The pipelines would reflect the future security architecture of the Middle East, while also helping to shape it. Countries with shared investment and export interests would acquire additional reasons to preserve stability and maintain workable relationships.
For Washington, supporting viable projects could turn its regional partnerships into a wider framework of economic resilience.
IMEC gains renewed strategic relevance
The India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor, or IMEC, belongs within this broader discussion.
The initiative envisages connections between India, the Gulf and Europe through maritime links, railways and associated energy, electricity and digital infrastructure. It is often presented as a Western-backed alternative to elements of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The vulnerabilities exposed around Hormuz and the Red Sea give such connectivity projects an additional security rationale. More routes can reduce dependence on individual chokepoints and provide trading partners with greater choice.
IMEC is not itself a direct replacement for the full volume of Gulf oil and LNG exports. Its importance lies in the wider diversification of transport and infrastructure, alongside dedicated energy-export routes.
European participation would be crucial. The underlying argument is that a threat to a merchant vessels in the Middle East can quickly become a problem for a factory in Europe. Infrastructure resilience and maritime security are therefore shared transatlantic concerns.
Europe’s role would extend beyond financing. New corridors would require political agreements, credible protection arrangements and cooperation on the security of important maritime and land-based infrastructure.
American leadership, working with European, Indian and regional partners, could help coordinate these interests without requiring Washington to carry the entire financial or security burden.
A potential investment wave over the next five years
My assessment is that the next three to five years could bring an exceptional wave of infrastructure planning and strategic investment across the Middle East, provided political and security conditions allow projects to advance.
The opportunity extends beyond pipelines to railways, roads, ports, energy terminals, storage facilities, electricity interconnections and digital networks.
The aim would be a system with enough alternative routes that no single state or armed organisation could impose severe disruption simply by threatening one passage.
This would strengthen the practical value of American partnerships. Military protection could help create the conditions for investment, while commercial links could give participating states stronger incentives to cooperate.
There are limits. Pipelines and terminals can themselves become targets; alternative routes can introduce new transit dependencies, and longer journeys can raise costs. Oil pipelines also do not solve the separate problem of LNG export logistics. A resilient strategy must diversify vulnerabilities rather than assume that moving infrastructure removes them.
Those difficulties make sustained US and allied engagement more important. They also reinforce the case for commercially credible projects supported by regional governments, rather than announcements that lack financing or implementation plans.
The deeper consequence of the conflict may therefore be a reassessment of how regional security is built. Keeping Hormuz open remains essential. Reducing the scale of the economic shock when it is disrupted would complement that mission.
Iran has demonstrated the leverage that comes from threatening a vital geographical bottleneck. The United States and its partners have the opportunity to answer with a broader strategy: defending navigation, expanding alternative infrastructure and strengthening cooperation among countries that benefit from stable trade.
If that effort succeeds, American leadership could help reshape the Middle East’s energy and commercial map. Its lasting achievement would be an international economy better able to withstand coercion—and a regional order in which security cooperation produces practical economic benefits.
