Dr. Salem AlKetbi is a UAE political analyst.
There are two ways to read what is unfolding around the Strait of Hormuz today. The first is familiar: the strait is a vital chokepoint through which, before the war, roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied gas passed; tensions make this narrow neck vulnerable to rising insurance costs and disruptions to tanker traffic. The second, and the more consequential in the long run, is a clash between two opposing strategic logics.
On one side, an Iranian logic invests in the threat potential conferred by geographic position and seeks to maximize its political yield. On the other, a Gulf logic has been working quietly, over years, to strip that position of its extortion value by redistributing trade and energy flows across a wider network of alternatives.
In this second reading, the real question is less how to protect navigation inside the strait than whether Hormuz remains a chokepoint that gives Tehran a structural pressure card, or instead turns into a waterway that, while important, ceases to be decisive in the regional trade equation.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf’s recent statements reveal the Iranian dilemma from within. The speaker of parliament, who at the peak of escalation hinted that the strait would not stay open if the siege continued, now speaks a different language. He raises what he calls Iran’s “sovereign right" as the coastal state, calls for collecting fees for services rendered to transiting vessels, and then concedes that Hormuz will never return to what it was before.
Within these changing positions lies a paradox evident to Tehran: the strait’s value to Iran is conditional on others continuing to pass through it. If its fees and threats push the Gulf states to accelerate their projects aimed at reducing dependence on the strait, the card itself may evaporate.
On the opposite shore, the UAE’s behavior in particular stands out as a model of long-term strategic response, not mere circumstantial risk management. Thani Al Zeyoudi, the UAE minister of state for foreign trade, has stated that his country is moving toward zero percent dependence on the Strait of Hormuz, regardless of whether the waterway is open or closed.
This language moves past the usual diversification rhetoric to a declaration of principle grounded in making trade and energy lines independent of the will of others. It reflects an advanced Gulf understanding of the concept of strategic autonomy in the maritime and logistical domain.
The concept of “zero dependence" here is distinct from abandoning the strait overnight. It entails building the infrastructure and logistical resilience that make transiting it a choice rather than a constraint. The difference is vast between a state that has the option of bypassing the strait and a state for whom the waterway remains the single obligatory path, whatever its political and security cost.
This principle was swiftly translated into practical steps on the UAE’s east coast. The existing Habshan-Fujairah pipeline, with a capacity of roughly 1.5 million barrels per day, proved during months of disrupted navigation to be a genuine lifeline for crude exports away from Hormuz.
Last May, Abu Dhabi announced the acceleration of a second pipeline, West-East 1, expected to begin operations in 2027, doubling ADNOC’s export capacity through the port of Fujairah. Alongside this, options for additional lines to carry refined products and petrochemicals from the same outlets are under study.
All this coincides with the expansion of the ports of Dibba, Fujairah, and Khorfakkan, the study of a new port on the Gulf of Oman coast, and the linking of these hubs to rail and road networks within the country. Consequently, it is not just a single pipeline being built; an entire maritime gateway is being constructed outside the potential chokepoint at the strait, redirecting a growing share of energy exports and trade away from the direct line of threat.
As for the financial cost, it has not been finalized. Emirati officials confirm that the projects are still in the feasibility study phase and will require billions of dollars in investment. However, justifying this expenditure becomes easier each time Tehran signals it may close the strait, disrupt it, or impose restrictive transit arrangements.
The broader dimension of this autonomy strategy is not purely engineering and logistics. It is about the reconfiguration of the regional interest network. When the east coast outlets connect to regional land corridors under development stretching through Iraq toward Turkey and the Levant, and to port projects involving regional partners, it is not just an “Emirati alternative" but the building of a bloc of interests that converge on a single goal: reducing Hormuz’s centrality in the trade and energy system.
At that point, the decoupling project turns from a defensive national option into a shared regional structure, whose disruption becomes more costly, politically and economically, for a larger number of actors. The security of flows through the new alternatives then becomes a collective responsibility, not a burden on one state alone.
Nevertheless, the picture retains its objective limits. The project of reducing dependence on the Strait of Hormuz is less about dispensing with it overnight than building an integrated network of ports, pipelines, roads, and railways that makes the continuity of trade and exports less tethered to a single route.
Within this framework, Jebel Ali Port will remain one of the world’s most important trade centers. Its role, however, will be reinforced through its integration into a more diverse and flexible national logistical system, connecting the ports of the east and west coasts and providing multiple pathways for the movement of goods and energy, thereby gradually reducing the impact of any potential disruption to navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.
For this reason, the UAE continues to call for keeping the strait open to international navigation while simultaneously rejecting any attempt to impose transit fees or turn it into a tool of political or economic extraction.
In the background, Iran’s naval doctrine makes Hormuz the axis for the Revolutionary Guard’s deployment, the utilization of the islands overlooking the waterway, and the construction of a network of coastal bases, fast boats, and naval mines. Its goal is to turn the strait into a high-density deterrent space that can be activated when needed. This investment in control and disruption tools was supposed to raise the cost of any attempt to bypass or neutralize the strait.
Today, however, Iran faces a new conundrum - every dollar spent on maximizing the capacity to threaten the strait is met, on the other side, by a dollar spent on diminishing its strategic value, through pipelines, ports, and connection networks that progressively emerge outside its direct reach.
Here the paradox closes: every new Iranian threat against the strait, every signal of fees, restriction, or disruption, accelerates the investment in bypassing it; the weapon consumes itself through use.
When the Gulf diversification projects reach a sufficient level of maturity, Hormuz turns from an asset that raises the cost of pressuring Iran into a point of exposure for Iran itself, as long as its own exports and imports remain more tethered to it than its neighbors’.
What is happening today is less about cancelling the physical importance of the strait than applying a policy of gradual geopolitical impoverishment to it, shrinking its susceptibility to being turned into a unilateral extortion tool.
The success of this policy is measured, ultimately, by the region’s ability to transition from centering around a single chokepoint to a flexible, multi-path network. It is a change that, over time, lowers the strategic return of the threat itself and forces Iran’s naval doctrine to recalculate in an environment where Hormuz ceases to be the only card, and certainly not the heaviest.