Strait talk: Irans Hormuz attacks must end the phony peace

An early period of World War II was known as “the phony war.” What we may be witnessing now in the US-Iran war is the end of a “phony peace.”The nearly five-month-long conflict has featured a couple of sham ceasefires, each marked by supposed Iranian pledges to re-open the Strait of Hormuz that came to nothing. With the Iranians firing on shipping on the Strait again, President Donald Trump has declared the so-called memorandum of understanding signed about a month ago a dead letter.After lifting sanctions on Iranian oil and ending the US blockade of Iranian ports, Trump has re-instituted both.He maintains that the United States will control the Strait, and at some point charge a 20% fee on all shipping for our trouble (one assumes that this idea, at variance with our contention that tolling the Strait is illegal, will be a non-starter).It was clear a couple of days into the war that the Strait of Hormuz had become the key strategic variable, and that Trump wouldn’t easily be able to walk away from the conflict without opening the Strait again.The MOU was an illusory means of achieving this goal via diplomacy.The problem is that we thought — or wanted to believe — that the agreement said the Iranians would allow unobstructed passage again, while the Iranians thought — or wanted to believe — it said that they would control it. That the MOU was subject to these starkly divergent understandings made it, in truth, a memorandum of obfuscation. The Iranians, of course, aren’t operating in good faith — but it’s a point in their favor that the MOU didn’t simply say, “There shall be freedom of navigation in the Strait.” Instead, it talked of how the Iranians would “make arrangements” for ensuring “the safe passage of commercial vessels, with no charge for 60 days only.” Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Please provide a valid email.

By clicking above you agree to the Terms ...