DAVID BLACKMON: World Needs Alternative To Hormuz Status Quo

(Photo by Giuseppe CACACE / AFP via Getty Images)

While President Donald Trump and his White House team focus on ways to force the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to ease the global supply crunch for oil and an array of other key commodities, other administration officials are working on options for long-term solutions that would bypass that vulnerable chokepoint. It involves a vision that has long been planned; now, many believe the time to execute it has arrived.

The glaring need for alternative routes was further spotlighted by the events of April 7 and 8. Just a few hours after Trump and Iranian leaders agreed to a two-week ceasefire deal that included a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran reneged, citing ongoing hostilities between Israel and its Lebanon-based terrorist proxy, Hezbollah.

One alternative concept now in play is called the India/Middle East/Europe corridor (IMEC), with the Israel port of Haifa targeted as the key export hub directly into the Mediterranean Sea. Far from just a single pipeline to move oil out of the Persian Gulf region, the IMEC plan — led by the U.S. — would involve the build-out of a full multimodal network of pipelines, trains, and roads to eliminate the Hormuz bottleneck entirely.

The ultimate goal of the plan would be to connect India to the Mediterranean while bypassing potential transport........

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