America’s Next Supply Chain Runs Through the Caucasus

For years, proponents of the Middle Corridor argued that any transit architecture dependent on Russian or Iranian territory was one crisis away from collapse. They were right. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed—first by Iranian blockade, now by American policy—taking roughly 20 percent of global petroleum transit offline. Southern routes through Iran that Central Asian states had been building as alternatives to Russian infrastructure are worthless. The only east-west corridor that bypasses both is the Middle Corridor, running through the South Caucasus. Iran grasped this before Congress did: On March 5, its drones struck Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan airport, targeting the precise…