On March 19, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, during a press conference, announced that after the war, Israel aims to build a new pipeline project that would transport Middle Eastern oil directly to Israeli ports, effectively rendering the Strait of Hormuz obsolete. With this statement, Netanyahu revealed that the true purpose of the war, which he and the United States initiated against Iran on February 28, was to establish a new oil order in which Middle Eastern petroleum would be distributed through Israel.

In his speech, Netanyahu explained this plan as follows: “If you construct oil and gas pipelines stretching westward across the Arabian Peninsula directly to Israel and our Mediterranean ports, you permanently eliminate these narrow straits. I see this as the real change that will follow the war.”

The gas route Netanyahu described, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, was the energy corridor of the “India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC Project),” which had been shelved following the October 7 Al-Aqsa Storm. As we will explain later in this article, it became clear that the war had been launched to revive this project.

At the beginning of the war, both Israel and the U.S. declared military objectives: to eliminate Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities, destroy its missile production capacity, and achieve regime change. However, by the third week of the conflict, both U.S. President Donald Trump and Netanyahu admitted that airstrikes alone would not likely bring about regime change. Deploying a few thousand U.S. troops on the ground was naturally insufficient to achieve this goal. Moreover, prior to the war, U.S. National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard submitted a report to the Senate Intelligence Committee stating that there was no evidence that Iran’s nuclear program, allegedly “destroyed” during the June 2025 attacks, had been rebuilt since then.

Even though all this was known at the outset, Netanyahu and a small group of Zionist elites in the White House (notably Senator Lindsey Graham, son-in-law Jared Kushner, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth) persuaded President Trump into what they framed as an easy war against Iran. Joseph Kent, head of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned in protest and in a letter to Trump wrote that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the U.S., and that this war—serving neither American security nor interests—had been initiated under pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.

So why, then, was a war that has already cost the U.S. and Israel $20 billion launched?

Netanyahu’s statements on the 20th day of the war about bypassing the Strait of Hormuz and establishing a new gas pipeline under Israel’s control revealed that Israel’s real goal was not the officially stated objectives targeting Iran. The Iranian objective had shifted to maintaining a weakened regime compatible with U.S.-Israeli interests. In fact, on March 23, Trump stated that he did not want the new religious leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, to die, suggesting that the Strait of Hormuz could be managed together with the Ayatollah.

Multiple indicators suggest that the joint military operation—Pentagon’s ‘Operation Epic Wrath’ and Israel’s ‘Operation Lion’s Roar’—was aimed at creating global chaos that would force producers and suppliers to accept a new oil order under Israel’s control. Israel’s March 18 attack on Iran’s South Pars gas field and the Asaluyeh oil refinery, coupled with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ announcement that they would retaliate against petroleum facilities in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar that refused to support the U.S.-Israeli side, sparked worldwide turmoil.

From the start of the war, Iran even targeted Oman’s Salalah and Duqm ports and the El Awahi Industrial Zone with drone attacks, despite hosting U.S.-Iran negotiations at its own request.

As retaliation for Israel’s strike on South Pars, the Revolutionary Guards attacked Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, the main center of the country’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) production, causing severe damage. Ras Laffan lies north of the South Pars gas field, which Qatar........

© Stratejik Düşünce Enstitüsü