Iran’s Undersea Cable Threat: Could Hormuz Become the Internet’s New Oil Chokepoint?
The Strait of Hormuz is already an oil chokepoint. Now IRGC-linked media are talking about undersea internet cables, data flows and fees. Is Iran discovering the soft underbelly of the digital economy?
Iran may have found a pressure point more modern than oil: undersea internet cables.
For decades, the Strait of Hormuz has been described as an energy chokepoint because a huge share of the world’s oil and gas moves through or near it. But the digital economy also relies on physical routes. Submarine cables carry the overwhelming majority of global internet traffic. Financial transactions, cloud services, military communications, emails, video calls and trading systems all depend on cables lying quietly on the seabed.
IRGC-linked media have reportedly floated the idea that Iran should generate revenue from undersea internet cables passing through the Strait of Hormuz. That does not mean Iran has cut cables, and it does not prove an imminent attack. But the concept alone matters. It signals that Tehran sees Hormuz not only as a shipping lane, but as a multi-layered pressure zone: oil, gas, tankers, naval movement, insurance, drones, mines and now data.
The numbers circulating online are dramatic: 97 percent of internet traffic, trillions in daily financial flows, cables near the Gulf, global vulnerability. Some figures are broad estimates and should not be treated as precise operational intelligence. But the underlying point is correct. The internet is not a cloud. It is a physical system. And physical systems can be threatened.
Recent conflicts have already shown the vulnerability of undersea cables. Suspicious damage in the Baltic, Red Sea disruptions and growing concern over Russian and Chinese seabed activity have pushed cable security into the national-security mainstream. Iran’s geography gives it a different kind of leverage. It does not need blue-water dominance to threaten infrastructure near its own region.
Would Iran actually attack cables? That depends on escalation logic. Cutting cables could hurt Iran’s enemies, but it could also damage neutral states, China-linked traffic, Gulf economies and Iran’s own diplomatic position. It would invite retaliation and possibly internationalize the war even further. That makes it a high-risk option.
But coercion does not always require action. Sometimes the threat is enough. If insurers, shipping companies, telecom operators and governments begin pricing in cable risk, the economic pressure starts before anything is cut.
That is why this story matters. Iran’s strength is not matching the U.S. platform for platform. It is finding asymmetries. Drones against destroyers. Missiles against tankers. Small boats against naval corridors. Now possibly cables against the digital economy.
The United States and its allies built a global system optimized for efficiency. Oil flows through chokepoints. Data flows through cables. Chips flow through Taiwan-linked supply chains. Rare earths flow through China. The system is powerful, but not invulnerable.
Iran may not be able to defeat the U.S. Navy in open battle. It does not need to. Its strategy is to make the operating cost of global order rise. If every ship needs escort, every tanker needs insurance, every cable needs monitoring and every market prices disruption, Iran has already changed the equation.
Hormuz was once just about oil. In 2026, it may become the place where energy security, cyber security and financial security collapse into one battlefield.
That is the lesson. The next war over the internet may not begin with hackers. It may begin on the seabed.