Europe Attempts To Talk Open the Strait of Hormuz

Europe is about process. America about action. At no time has that axiom been more evident than in the confrontation with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Two stalwarts of the European approach to crises, Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain and France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, will lead the way on Friday. That’s when they plan to gather dozens of the like-minded for a Zoom session on how to talk away the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz The gabfest’s participants are likely to agree that once America resolves the crisis and Hormuz is open to all, Europe will spring into action. They will debate, negotiate, vote, and exclude America from their diplomacy. That, of course, is not exactly how 10 Downing and the Élysée phrase it. Borrowing a page from President George W. Bush, they vow to gather a “coalition of the willing” that will mine-sweep the strait — but only after the war is over. Monsieur Macron writes on X that the session will “bring together by videoconference non-belligerent countries ready to contribute, alongside us, to a multilateral and purely defensive mission aimed at restoring freedom of navigation in the strait when security conditions allow.” When will all this happen? The mission “could only be deployed once calm has been restored and hostilities have ceased,” France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, says.Meanwhile the United States Navy is raising the ante for the Tehran. President Trump counters Iran’s closure of a waterway through which 20 percent of the world’s oil passes by blocking Iran’s means of exporting oil. Denied their only source of income if the American blockade lasts, Iran and its Revolutionary Guards are projected to lose some $13 billion a month. That is the way to bankruptcy, and it might force the mullahs to cry uncle. Mr. Trump is exuding confidence that the Strait will open under pressure. Anticipating an upcoming trip to Beijing, he wrote Wednesday on Truth Social that “China is very happy that I am permanently opening the Strait of Hormuz. I am doing it for them, also — And the World.” The president has argued that Europe and Asia are suffering from the Strait’s closure more than America, and therefore should contribute to opening it.While the Strait is yet to open, addressing Communist China fits well with the President’s diplomatic style. He is nudging the one power that can influence the mullahs to pressure Tehran. Yet diplomacy is Europe’s strong suit, we are told. Tell that to the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to Washington who met at the Department of State Tuesday to make peace between two countries — with France nowhere in sight. France, the former colonial power, has long presented itself as Lebanon’s ultimate power broker. For all its efforts, though, Paris negotiated one temporary ceasefire agreement after another, which is what Paris calls for now. Ceasefires don’t last because Hezbollah answers to Tehran, not Beirut. Instead, America seeks to cut the Gordian knot by promoting an eventual Israeli-Lebanese peace treaty, hinged on disarming Hezbollah. “We certainly don’t want the French anywhere near these negotiations,” Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter, told reporters after the historic meeting with his Lebanese counterpart. “We’d like to keep the French as far away as possible from pretty much everything, but particularly when it comes to peace negotiations.” In the Iran crisis, too, Sir Keir and Monsieur Macron insist on talking themselves into irrelevance.

Europe Attempts To Talk Open the Strait of Hormuz

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