As pressure mounts over the Strait of Hormuz, Misryoum argues the U.S. should reduce Iran’s leverage by financing new pipeline corridors—starting with Iraq-to-Turkey links.
Barring a breakthrough in Iran diplomacy or a political reset in Tehran, the West is heading toward its biggest energy-security stress test in decades—centered on the Strait of Hormuz.
Misryoum frames the challenge as more than a shipping problem.. A prolonged disruption to oil. gas and petrochemical transit would not just spike prices; it would steadily erode confidence. investment. and industrial supply chains.. The risk is “slow-burn” economic damage—felt in contracts. shipping schedules. insurance costs. and the timing of refinery runs—rather than a single dramatic shock.
The core question, then, is how to break the leverage built into a chokepoint.. Misryoum’s answer points to a familiar pattern from earlier Middle East crises: when transit routes get weaponized. engineering and financing move faster than coercion.. During the Arab-Israeli conflicts of the 1950s through the 1970s. Arab states used Egypt’s canal system and regional pipeline networks as tools to pressure Israel and Western partners.. Each time. Western companies and regional governments adapted—rerouting. enlarging tanker fleets. and pushing new pipeline projects that changed the geography of dependence.
The policy lesson matters now because the West’s current vulnerability is structural.. Hormuz concentrates maritime risk in a narrow corridor. giving any actor willing to raise costs at sea a kind of leverage that is hard to neutralize with temporary naval fixes.. Misryoum argues that deterrence must be re-engineered into the energy system itself—so that the economic penalty of disruption no longer falls predominantly on global consumers and European buyers.
A return to bypass logic begins with the Iraq-Turkey corridor.. Misryoum’s proposed near-term focus is to revive and expand the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline system so it can move more crude through a non-Hormuz pathway.. The significance is twofold: it would reduce the share of Gulf barrels exposed to Strait risk. and it could create a commercial incentive for Baghdad and Erbil to settle revenue-sharing disputes that have repeatedly stalled stable export planning.
That incentive is not just technocratic.. For Iraqi politics, pipeline flows can become bargaining chips, and the absence of reliable routing magnifies internal disputes.. Misryoum notes that pipeline economics tend to outlast political quarrels because they embed revenue streams, employment, and long-term contracts.. Even when states are hostile, the operators—often backed by state-linked companies and major financiers—still need functioning throughput.
From there, Misryoum argues for a broader trans-Arabian energy corridor linking Gulf supply to the Mediterranean.. The idea is a modern reimagining of Cold War-era thinking. designed to connect production to ports in Israel rather than relying on Lebanon-centered routes.. A corridor of that kind would not have to “end” Hormuz reliance overnight to change the balance.. It only needs to reduce exposure enough to weaken the psychological and price-control grip that comes from the threat of closure.
Gas and power markets add another layer.. Misryoum highlights that a pipeline strategy is not confined to crude oil.. Over time. trans-regional gas corridors—from Turkmenistan via the South Caucasus toward Europe. or from Qatar toward Turkey through a route that could traverse the region—could complement crude diversions by shifting additional volumes away from maritime choke risk.. LNG and conventional pipeline gas currently represent major volumes running through the same geographic pressure points. so a multi-commodity approach would make deterrence harder to undo.
There are real constraints, and Misryoum would not pretend otherwise.. Revenue-sharing conflicts inside Iraq, the diplomatic friction required for Israeli-Arab pipeline coordination, and persistent instability in Syria all create obstacles.. Modern conflict also changes the calculus: drone warfare and proxy activity mean that overland corridors are not immune to sabotage. and any corridor can become a target if regional tensions escalate.
Still, the durability argument stands.. Misryoum stresses that damaged pipelines are generally repairable on shorter timelines than disruptions at sea. and attacks that risk large-scale escalation can create a deterrent effect on their own.. Historically, corridors have survived wars and insurgencies when the system became too commercially and politically embedded to shut down permanently.. The lesson Misryoum takes from earlier transit crises is blunt: transit problems are often solved by engineers and financiers well before they’re solved by militaries or diplomats.
For U.S.. policymakers, the practical takeaway is about financing as strategy.. Misryoum points to a model where the United States leads a financing syndicate—combining public guarantees with European development finance tools and Gulf sovereign wealth resources—targeting infrastructure “hinges” that change route dependence.. If the West can structurally undermine chokepoint leverage, the threat of disruption becomes less economically decisive.
In short, escaping the Hormuz trap may require less dramatic gestures and more durable construction. Misryoum’s view is that bypass financing can become the geoeconomic deterrent: a signal to Tehran that holding the global energy system hostage is no longer the most rational path to leverage.