{"id":3957,"date":"2026-05-17T10:00:02","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T10:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/directpolicyfoundation.org\/iran-eyes-a-new-source-of-power-deep-beneath-the-strait-of-hormuz\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T07:09:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T07:09:18","slug":"iran-eyes-a-new-source-of-power-deep-beneath-the-strait-of-hormuz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mahmoodsaif.org\/DEV\/iran-eyes-a-new-source-of-power-deep-beneath-the-strait-of-hormuz\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran eyes a new source of power deep beneath the Strait of Hormuz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Emboldened by its successful wartime blockade of the <a style=\"font-weight: bold; line-height: 30px;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/05\/07\/middleeast\/iran-hormuz-rules-warime-gains-intl\">Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, Iran is turning to one of the hidden arteries in the global economy: subsea cables beneath the waterway that carry vast internet and financial traffic between Europe, Asia and the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n<p>The Islamic Republic wants to charge the world\u2019s largest tech companies for using the subsea internet cables laid under the Strait of Hormuz, and state-linked media outlets have vaguely threatened that traffic could be disrupted if firms don\u2019t pay. Lawmakers in Tehran discussed a plan last week which could target submarine cables linking Arab countries to Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will impose fees on internet cables,\u201d Iranian military spokesperson Ebrahim Zolfaghari declared <a style=\"font-weight: bold; line-height: 30px;\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Ibrahim_alFiqar\/status\/2053115189709672452?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">on X<\/a> last week. Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards-linked media said Tehran\u2019s plan to extract revenue from the strait would require companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon to comply with Iranian law while submarine cable companies would be required to pay licensing fees for cable passage, with repair and maintenance rights given exclusively to Iranian firms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Emboldened by its successful wartime blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is turning to one of the hidden arteries &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3956,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analyses","category-slider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmoodsaif.org\/DEV\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmoodsaif.org\/DEV\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmoodsaif.org\/DEV\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmoodsaif.org\/DEV\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmoodsaif.org\/DEV\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3957"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mahmoodsaif.org\/DEV\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3980,"href":"https:\/\/mahmoodsaif.org\/DEV\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3957\/revisions\/3980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmoodsaif.org\/DEV\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmoodsaif.org\/DEV\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmoodsaif.org\/DEV\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmoodsaif.org\/DEV\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}