får jag föreslå AltText, för att jag skulle gärna boosta? (Och ursäkta att den är på engelska)

A map of the Strait of Hormuz, showing the sharp bend in the water where it flows around the pointy bit of Oman close to the Iranian shore. User Todd has drawn a blue line straight across the middle of the peninsula, from about Abu Dhabi to Sohar, and helpfully added a red arrow pointing to it labelled "Canal", with the comment "Why are we bothering with the Strait of Hormuz when we could just do this? Explain it to me like I'm 5".

User RIOS 508 has replied, in capital letters, "Mountain hard and big, water no up, many many dig dig".

I mean, the highway 7 + E22 already cross that mountain range in a valley. It's not inconceivable - we *have* completed such civil engineering projects before.

(A lot more sensible than NEOM.)

Both ends of the channel would be in sovereign waters (UAE/Oman) and harder to block without an outright war.

Of course, solving a political problem through engineering is ... unlikely to completely address the issue. (And, ofc, outright war seems to be the preferred option these days.)

"WATER NO UP" got me thinking. When the Pirates of the Caribbean ride was built at Disneyland, they had to make the ride go under the train tracks, which is the reason for the two waterfall portions. At the end there is a chain lift to raise the boat back up to street level.

So they could do the reverse here, build a chain lift up the Ru'us al-Jibal, and then a log flume down the other side. Then everyone on the ship would go WEEEEEEEEE!!! (for 12 miles)

and a big engineering project in the missile of a war zone might be problematic

Map of missile range for context