叙利亚能否替代霍尔木兹海峡？

For much of history, from the ancient Silk Road to the 21st century, Syria has played a key role in global trade as a transit node connecting east and west. More than a decade of civil war, however, devastated Syrian infrastructure, diminishing its connectivity and isolating the country from those trade routes. But now, with Syria more stable and Middle Eastern and global trade upended by the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Syria sees an opportunity to revitalize its economy and rebuild its historic trade relevance by becoming an alternative overland route for energy, food, and other commercial trade.

So, in this video, we're going to explain this plan, why Syria is theoretically well placed to be an important trade corridor, and the challenges it faces in trying to achieve this.

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Let's start with a bit of geography to situate Syria and understand why it is well placed. Located in the Levant region, Syria borders five other countries: Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, and Lebanon, and has a coastline, albeit a short one, on the Mediterranean Sea. With its main ports in the cities of Latakia and Tartus, as such, Syria conveniently sits along potential trade routes spanning from, for example, Egypt to Turkey or the Gulf to the Mediterranean and Europe.

The vast majority of exports from the Gulf states, at least before the Iran war this year, went out through the Strait of Hormuz. In fact, something like 20% of the world's oil and gas supply normally pass through the strait, making it among the most important maritime choke points in the world. Despite a nominal ceasefire between the US and Iran, which hardly seems to be holding anyway, the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut to maritime traffic, and there's not much indication that it will reopen anytime soon.

Gulf states have therefore been looking for any and all alternative routes for their mostly fossil fuel exports. Perhaps most notably, Saudi Arabia increased the volume of oil sent along the East-West pipeline to be exported from the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea, thus bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. For other producers, particularly Iraq, Syria emerged as a prospective export route. Since late March, a series of shipments of Iraqi oil have been sent in convoys of hundreds of tanker trucks, which crossed the border into Syria, traversed the country, and were unloaded at the Mediterranean coast for export to European markets.

It's not just Iraq, either. Other Gulf producers, including the United Arab Emirates, have sent shipments of oil overland through Syria and out into the Mediterranean. Mazen Alloush, the director of local and international relations for Syria's border authority, was quoted as saying, "After the closure of the Hormuz Strait, pretty much all the neighboring countries in the region knocked on our door to get access to our Syrian ports."

Now, we're not talking about huge volumes of oil here, especially when compared with the peacetime flows of fossil fuels out of the Gulf, but the Syrian government clearly sees this as a proof of concept for Syria's relevance as a transport corridor, and the country's president, Bashar al-Assad, has been on a bit of an international charm offensive trying to pitch this idea. In Cyprus, meeting of European leaders in April, al-Assad touted Syria as an alternative and secure artery connecting Central Asia and the Gulf to the heart of the European continent.

Al-Assad is also set to attend the upcoming G7 summit in France in a few weeks' time, where, according to a Syrian official cited by Reuters, his participation will likely focus on Syria's role as a potential strategic hub for supply chains amid the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. For Syria, the benefits are obvious. Transit fees and handling fees for shipments passing through Syria are an economic opportunity. Syria needs as much investment into its post-civil war reconstruction as possible.

We're talking hundreds of billions of dollars. So, Al-Shara's pitch to the international community of Syria as a potential strategic hub, i.e. centering the geopolitical and strategic benefits for the international community, is a savvy one to try and draw in foreign investment. It's worth pointing out though that shipments of oil by truck are more expensive, less efficient, and much lower capacity than seaborn shipping.

So, in the event that the Strait of Hormuz does reopen, the maritime route for oil will be the primary option. But, it's not so much about replacing the Strait of Hormuz, rather it's about reducing global over-reliance on the Strait, and Syria becoming one of several other alternative routes. Even then, Al-Shara's vision for the role Syria might play is much greater than just a roadway for oil trucks. In Cyprus, Al-Shara mentioned reviving the Four Seas project, a long-standing and never-realized initiative in which, in the words of Syria expert Charles Lister, Syria would act as a point of commercial and logistics connectivity through railways, roadways, and pipelines, linking the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, Caspian Sea, and Persian Gulf regions.

This is a lofty ambition, and there is a laundry list of potential projects that could help integrate or reintegrate Syria into wider trade networks. Several of these are oil and gas pipelines. For instance, there have been some recent moves aimed at revitalizing the Arab Gas Pipeline, a project that links Egyptian gas supplies to Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Meanwhile, Iraq and Syria are assessing the viability of reviving the Kirkuk-Banias Pipeline, which would connect Iraqi oil fields with Syria's Mediterranean coast and beyond.

Separately, Turkey, Syria, and Jordan are looking to restore and modernize the defunct Ottoman era Hejaz Railway that could eventually form part of a Europe-Gulf rail corridor. The limiting factor on all these new, reimagined, or revitalized projects, however, is Syria's shattered infrastructure. Huge, expensive upgrades will be needed to improve its energy grid, rail network, ports, border crossings, pipelines, roads, and more if this vision, and it is a long-term vision, of Syria is to come to fruition.

Fortunately for Syria, Western countries have lifted most of their Assad-era sanctions that stifled the country, and key regional partners have committed billions to more tangible projects. The Emirati-owned DP World, for instance, has signed an $800 million deal to develop and upgrade Syria's Tartus port with a goal of making it a key trade hub in the Eastern Mediterranean. While Saudi Arabia, as well as investing in new airports, is also investing almost a billion dollars into the Silk Link project, which aims to develop Syria's telecommunications infrastructure and digital connectivity with 4,500 km of optical fiber, ultimately aiming to position Syria as a strategic digital corridor between Asia and Europe.

Qatar and Turkey, meanwhile, have signed multi-billion dollar deals to stabilize the grid and upgrade energy infrastructure. But in the short term, Syria has little capacity to replace or offset the shuttered Strait of Hormuz. And if the longer-term vision is to be achieved, it will need the aforementioned financial investment, not just in Syria, but in neighboring countries, too, as well as consistent political support and reliable stability in the countries involved, which is far from guaranteed.

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