Look at a topographic map instead, this is a mountain range that goes up to 1934m.

Ships aren't going up there in this century.

Why dig a whole canal when you could just set up a pipeline for much less money?

Or you could, like China did, build a massive railway from China directly to Teheran, thereby bypassing most of the maritime sanctions and maybe even transport oil directly to China:the 5 nations railway corridor https://fountainbridge.substack.com/p/china-iran-rail-corrid...

If you consider the topology, it is way less viable.

If you go through UAE (the narrow part) you are attempting to build a canal through mountains and desert.

Any other route (the non narrow parts) would just be 3-4x the length of the Suez Canal but through a desert, but since its not sea level the whole way, with locks (which means more water... again, desert), and at the end forces you through an even narrower strait at the end (Bab-el-Mandeb). The Houthis in Yemen have blasted Israeli-affiilated ships in that strait before, and they are Iran-backed.

Also, even if any of that were done: As ACOUP pointed out, the problem is not just the strait itself. Iran controls the entire eastern coast of the gulf and could harass ships from any location there. Essentially, Iran showed it can control most of the gulf if it wants to.

https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/

You can't cross the Arabian peninsula to the Red Sea either as there's also a mountain range on the west of it.

The only viable passage would be through the center of Oman (no mountain here) but that would be a gigantic canal. And that wouldn't really solve the issue, as the Iranians could easily block the canal as long as it is within reach of their drones and ballistic missile: you just need to hit one ship in the canal to effectively block it.