Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday he expects Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz to lose its strategic weight after the war ends, predicting that oil pipelines will be rerouted around the vital waterway.
Speaking to “ABC News Live Prime” anchor Linsey Davis, Netanyahu said he had anticipated Iran might attempt to block the strait, a route for roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply, but said the consequences were impossible to forecast precisely.
“I thought they could do it, but I thought they’d also have to consider what would be the consequences if they do it, and nobody could predict that with accuracy,” he said.
Netanyahu said that once the conflict concludes, the strait will lose much of its leverage as energy infrastructure shifts elsewhere.
“I don’t think the straits are going to be that powerful a leverage, because people will move the energy pipelines out of the straits to the Red Sea, from there to Israel and the Mediterranean,” he said. “We can unblock this choke point, and we will.”
