this post was submitted on 11 May 2026
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Seems pretty short term gain for Iran by pissing everybody off.
Because surely the cables can relatively easily be rerouted over land, instead of paying Iran's tolls. Unlike the tankers, the Internet signals do not need to go though the water.
And how would Iran even justify forbidding the cables from going through the part of the strait which is not their territorial waters? The same way Iran "justifies" forbidding ships from doing that? - as in, no real attempt at a moral or legal justification.
it's war. pissing people off is par for course.
But Iran would be pissing off everybody - for example China and India. Not just the US.
War is pissing other people off. But does Iran want to be at war with all other countries in the world?
It would be a huge interruption of service for one and then the huge cost of replacement.
Submarine cables exist because it is superior to land when done on scale.
Submarine cables are usually cheaper and simpler at intercontinental scale, especially because they avoid negotiating rights-of-way across many countries. But unlike oil tankers, internet traffic is not physically constrained to the Strait of Hormuz itself. Capacity could be rerouted over terrestrial fiber links around the Gulf if the economics changed enough.
The bigger issue would probably be the time, permits, and infrastructure investment needed to build enough alternative land routes. Not any physical impossibility of carrying the signals over land. The cables themselves are likely pretty cheap.
And permits should be quite easy to come by, in the empty desert of the Arabian peninsula.