As missiles fly over the Strait of Hormuz again, the fragile peace signed at Versailles in June lies in ruins and once again the world may pay the price

For a few weeks this summer, it looked like the worst had passed. A fourteen-point memorandum, signed with fanfare by Donald Trump and Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, had promised a permanent end to hostilities, a reopened Strait of Hormuz, and a path back to sanctions relief. That illusion collapsed this week. After Iranian projectiles struck three commercial tankers transiting Hormuz, the United States answered with strikes on more than eighty targets across Iran. Trump, speaking from a NATO summit in Ankara, declared the agreement "over," calling peace talks a "waste of time" — even as he left the door open, however grudgingly, for negotiators to keep talking. The........

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