Just as a two-week cease-fire between the United States and Iran kicked in last week, Europeans rushed to meet partners in the Persian Gulf in a scramble to find ways to secure the Strait of Hormuz. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer flew to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, while the European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, arrived in Saudi Arabia and later visited Abu Dhabi.

“Our Governments will contribute to ensuring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz,” noted a statement signed by representatives of several European countries plus Australia, Japan,  and Canada. However, the statement did not specify what these contributions might be.

Just as a two-week cease-fire between the United States and Iran kicked in last week, Europeans rushed to meet partners in the Persian Gulf in a scramble to find ways to secure the Strait of Hormuz. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer flew to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, while the European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, arrived in Saudi Arabia and later visited Abu Dhabi.

“Our Governments will contribute to ensuring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz,” noted a statement signed by representatives of several European countries plus Australia, Japan,  and Canada. However, the statement did not specify what these contributions might be.

The Europeans are trying to gauge the Gulf’s expectations and build a consensus on a more sustainable way to secure the strait even as they fear that the cease-fire might be fragile. Over the weekend, talks held between the United States and Iran failed to deliver a deal. U.S. President Donald Trump later told Fox News that the United States will blockade Iranian ports—to ensure that Iran cannot charge a fee for ships that it lets through. But if Trump’s goal was to help secure global energy supplies or blunt Iranian diplomatic leverage, his planned blockade seemed likely to accomplish the opposite.

Even if the cease-fire holds, the Europeans fear that there is no solution to securing the strait unless Iran is brought onboard and agrees to a deconfliction mechanism—a diplomatic outcome that Europe has little ability to directly affect. The only alternative is becoming a party to the war and risking naval assets and troops to escort cargo vessels as well as deploying ground forces inside Iran over an extended period, which the Europeans have no appetite to do.

Various European leaders have tried to point out the pointlessness of military adventurism in the narrow waterway on the Iranian coast, where Iranian forces hold the advantage, but they have had little success. Trump seems to believe that reopening the strait will be an easy task, describing it as “a simple military maneuver” with little risk in a post on Truth........

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