On July 8th, speaking at the Nato Summit in Ankara, Donald Trump referred to the Iranian leadership as “scum” and declared the agreement reached with Iran less than three weeks earlier, which brought an end to the war launched by the US and Israel on February 28th, was “over”. However, like so many of the pronouncements of the American president, this one cannot be taken completely at face value.

The immediate prompt for Trump’s declaration was a number of Iranian attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, which were met in turn by US air strikes on Iranian targets. Iran then attacked US military facilities in the Gulf. Tit-for-tat exchanges of hostilities have followed.

Control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which, as everyone now knows, a significant proportion of global oil and other essential goods transits, has been central to the events of the past week.

For decades, passage through the strait was largely unimpeded for maritime traffic. Indeed, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea stipulates that no country has the right to claim international waters. While neither Iran nor the US have ratified the convention, legal experts argue it has become part of international customary law and therefore binds both.

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However, the conflict between the US and Iran has made clear to........

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