Gulf nations race to bypass Hormuz and build defenses as Iran war drags on

Gulf nations race to bypass Hormuz and build defenses as Iran war drags on

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates - The Persian Gulf nations are building up their own defenses and finding routes around the Strait of Hormuz, officials said, as they confront a U.S. war against Iran with no end in sight.

The wealthy countries, known for their stability before the war, have borne the brunt of Tehran's retaliatory attacks.

They are now increasing their spending on security and diversifying their international security partnerships.

Construction on a pipeline in the United Arab Emirates is expanding, while ports in the UAE and Oman that are outside of the Strait of Hormuz are booming, as they become hubs for nations that have no alternative to the narrow waterway, which has largely has been blocked by the war.

President Donald Trump has said in recent days that the U.S. military is helping "millions" of barrels of oil transit the strait, through which about 20 percent of global oil and gas supplies passed before the bombing of Iran started in February.

Despite Trump's claims, maritime tracking companies show that the number of ships passing through the strait has reduced to a trickle.

Today, the main threat facing the Gulf region is "normalization" of the crisis, Majed al-Ansari, spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry of Qatar and an adviser to Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said Monday.

"It is no longer seen as a temporary crisis with a start and an end date," he said at the Hili Forum, a regional conference in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE. "It is more and more seen as a new normal."

As the Trump administration seeks to impose an economic stranglehold on Iran, a tactic with little precedent of success, officials from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar said at the conference in Abu Dhabi that it is essential for Gulf nations, which have long relied on the United States as their top security partner, to broaden their horizons.

"Strategic autonomy does not mean strategic isolation," said Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic adviser to the president of the UAE. "Our long-standing and trusted partnerships, in particular with the United States, remain an essential part of our security and an important source of strength. The two are complementary, not contradictory."

Gargash said Iran "remains our neighbor, and at some point we will have to find a way to restore what can be restored."

"Geography gives us no alternative to engagement," he added. "But we must distinguish clearly between rebuilding a necessary and functional relationship with Iran and rebuilding the trust that has broken. The first is necessary. The second will be far more difficult."

The remarks by Gargash and other officials underscored the risk to U.S. allies in the Gulf as the Trump administration seeks to impose maximum pain on the Iranian economy, which is deeply intertwined with those of other Gulf nations.

In recent weeks, the U.S. and Iran have traded limited strikes, with the U.S. military on Saturday saying that it hit three Iranian oil tankers, including one near Kharg Island, the country's main oil terminal, after Iran launched missiles toward two U.S. Navy warships.

The Trump administration has signaled that an intensive new military campaign is unlikely and that the president's preference is to use a naval blockade and a bevy of sanctions to impose leverage in hopes of exacting concessions, including an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

But experts have cast doubt on the idea that U.S. economic pressure will force the Iranian regime to capitulate.

Iranian officials have acknowledged the pain of recent sanctions on their economy. But instead of being more willing to negotiate, they have ramped up strikes and bellicose rhetoric.

Al-Ansari, the official from Qatar, which has been helping mediate an end to the war, said that one major roadblock is a "narrative problem," because "if the other party's narrative succeeds, then strategically, they have failed. … Therefore, it makes more sense for them to continue [fighting]."

At this point, it appears that neither the U.S. and Israel nor Iran are willing to be seen as having failed, he said. That creates a major obstacle, he said, to determining "a desired outcome for both parties" to declare the war over.

In that context, al-Ansari said: "Having international forces in the region, having a strategic alliance in the United States, is very important, but it is not enough. Self-sufficiency when it comes to security is the only way forward."

In the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman, officials have been able to use ports outside of the Strait of Hormuz - with access to the Arabian Sea and beyond to the Indian Ocean - to continue to export oil and import other goods.

The nations of Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, which do not have such ports, or land borders that allow them to avoid the Strait of Hormuz, have suffered more acutely.

With a single drone, al-Ansari noted, Iran was able to take out about a critical portion of Qatar's liquefied natural gas supply - which represents 20 percent of the world's overall LNG supply.

The weapons industry is "definitely expanding across the Gulf," said Mohammed Baharoon, director general of B'huth, a Dubai research center, with Gulf nations turning to partners including Ukraine, Turkey and South Korea as they prepare for the future.

"It used to be about defense and deterrence," he said. "But now it is also about offense."

When the UAE deployed a Chinese-made defense system to Bahrain, which has been targeted by barrages of Iranian drones and missiles, there was no objection from the United States, he noted.

"Every country is working on a plan B," said Nasser Hassan Al Shaikh, a businessman, former UAE government official and economist. "We know that life cannot stop."

Especially when it comes to oil, he said, the attitude can be summed up as: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Especially with something as important as oil."

DP World, which runs the massive Jebel Ali Port in Dubai, where traffic has declined dramatically, announced in July that it would build two new deepwater terminals in Fujairah beyond the Strait of Hormuz.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) is speeding up construction of a 320-mile pipeline that is expected to open next year, while construction of a train line was also accelerated.

Heading toward the UAE's Khorfakkan port on a recent day, lines of trucks snarled along roads cut into a mountain.

The port has seen an influx of traffic, with the number of containers it handles jumping to 70,000 a week from about 8,000 before the war, said Farid Belbouab, the chief executive officer of Gulftainer, the UAE-headquartered global port and logistics solutions provider that operates the port at Khorfakkan.

"We are not saying we are building something to replace Hormuz," he said. "But our role is to drastically reduce the dependence on it."