A Gulf Suez Canal? Bypassing the Strait of Hormuz may be harder than its advocates suggest

LONDON: It began with a satirical open letter addressed to US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, posted on Sunday on ChinaTalk, a Substack focused on US-China relations.

Instead of fighting over the Strait of Hormuz bottleneck, it suggested, America should use nuclear weapons to “cut a new channel through friendly territory.

“A dozen thermonuclear detonations and you’ve got a waterway wider than the Panama Canal, deeper than the Suez, and safe from Iranian attacks.”

The writer made clear the suggestion was satirical with this signoff: “The views expressed above do not necessarily represent those of anyone with brain cells.”

And, to ram home the point, there was an artificial intelligence-generated image of Fox News coverage of President Donald Trump cutting a tape to open the “Trump Canal.”