Foreign & Public Diplomacy

Diplomats like ambiguity. But as President Donald Trump’s emissaries try to craft a permanent ceasefire agreement in the Iran war, they will need certainty about one essential detail: safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. So far, that seems to be a shimmering mirage.

Trump was exulting early Wednesday about the current fragile ceasefire with the same overheated rhetoric that he used a day before with his ultimatum that “a whole civilization will die” if Iran didn’t capitulate and open the strait. A day later, he was proclaiming, “this could be the Golden Age of the Middle East!!!” In Iran, “big money will be made.”

Diplomats like ambiguity. But as President Donald Trump’s emissaries try to craft a permanent ceasefire agreement in the Iran war, they will need certainty about one essential detail: safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. So far, that seems to be a shimmering mirage.

Trump was exulting early Wednesday about the current fragile ceasefire with the same overheated rhetoric that he used a day before with his ultimatum that “a whole civilization will die” if Iran didn’t capitulate and open the strait. A day later, he was proclaiming, “this could be the Golden Age of the Middle East!!!” In Iran, “big money will be made.”

Not so fast. By late Wednesday, Iran’s Fars News Agency reported that the strait was fully closed. And the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, suggested........

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