Iran weaponized the Strait of Hormuz. Now its neighbors are building around it
A New Energy Order Emerges as Iran Challenges the Strait of Hormuz
Healfromzero.com – Wars rarely conclude where they initially began. The ongoing confrontation with Tehran has experienced constantly shifting goals, transitioning from hopes of toppling the regime to more precise missions of weakening its nuclear and military infrastructure. After nearly half a year, this conflict has transformed into something fundamentally different: a contest for dominance over one of the planet’s most critical energy corridors.
Tehran has proven both the capacity and determination to strike commercial vessels navigating the waterway unless they follow rules established by Iran. The United States, alongside most of the international community including every Gulf nation bordering the channel, considers this behavior unacceptable. The central strategic question has narrowed to a single issue: will this passage continue functioning as an international waterway, or will Iran gain the power to decide who passes through and under which conditions?
Handing control to Iran would deliver its government tens of billions of dollars annually in transit fees, while granting Tehran the power to regulate energy flows worldwide. The regime would essentially become the thermostat for the global economy.
Unconventional Tactics Disrupt Long-Standing Assumptions
Iran isn’t physically obstructing the passage with blockades. Instead, it launches drones and cruise missiles at civilian vessels. This approach proves sufficient to halt commerce and shatter a decades-old belief: that the Strait of Hormuz would stay open as an international passage even during wartime. During the twelve-day conflict in June 2025, which included American strikes targeting Iran’s nuclear installations, the waterway remained largely unaffected. That assumption has now collapsed, creating enormous challenges for Washington and the broader world.
When I served in the White House, I watched the Iranian-backed Houthi movement employ identical tactics to close the Red Sea through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. The United States assembled a coalition and launched an air campaign to weaken Houthi capabilities, yet we could not prevent every missile launch or convince commercial shippers to resume normal passage. The Houltis only ceased their attacks after reaching an agreement with Washington.
Today, the US will confront the same problem: a time consuming, costly, and extremely difficult mission to deny Iran’s ability to attack with drones and cruise missiles that can be fired from over 1,000 kilometers away.
This represents a classic needle-in-a-haystack operation, though the current situation proves far more severe. The Bab al-Mandeb handles ten percent of worldwide shipping, which can raise inflation modestly. Hormuz manages twenty percent of global energy commerce. As President Donald Trump noted before announcing a brief agreement with Iran, this volume is sufficient to trigger an “economic catastrophe.”
Regional Powers Build Alternatives
Iran’s approach centers on elevating global energy prices to pressure the White House into surrendering passage control entirely. However, its tactics—attacking civilian ships and conducting operations across the Gulf—are generating longer-term consequences that may ultimately work against Tehran. Throughout the Middle East, governments and energy corporations are rapidly advancing pipelines, ports, and transportation corridors designed to route oil, gas, and merchandise around the Strait of Hormuz rather than through it.
The United States now provides direct backing for these initiatives. While the waterway will undoubtedly remain significant, this marks the first time in decades that the region is making serious investments toward a future where Hormuz might not be absolutely essential. The Middle East energy map is being redrawn specifically to diminish Iran’s leverage over this critical chokepoint.
Before hostilities began, roughly twenty-three million barrels of energy products flowed through the Strait of Hormuz daily. This waterway served as the primary export route for Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain, while functioning as the main transit corridor for products originating in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Now, governments are preparing for scenarios where Hormuz periodically closes or becomes commercially unreliable. This fundamentally alters the strategic equation.
Rather than relying on a single indispensable chokepoint, nations are investing in a network of multiple export pathways capable of gradually reducing Iranian influence. These projects won’t replace every barrel that previously transited Hormuz, but they will substantially diminish its strategic importance. Goldman Sachs recently highlighted how these developments could reshape regional power dynamics for years to come.