India, March 26 -- For four weeks and counting, the world has been watching one narrow body of water in the Persian Gulf. Now, its alternative is also encircled in red, while the world awaits a diplomatic thaw to end the US-Israel war on Iran.

At the nub of the conflict so far has been the Strait of Hormuz. A 33-km-wide passage through which a fifth of the world's oil is usually shipped, it has been effectively shut as the Iranian military has responded with a global supply squeeze after an American-Israel attack sparked a wider conflict in the oil-rich Gulf region.

Lying between Iran and the eastern side of the Arabian peninsula, the Hormuz Strait connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, the Arabian Sea and beyond. It remains too...