LONDON, July 4 -- France has dispatched two minehunters and two frigates to the Middle East, with a maritime patrol aircraft flying cover overhead. Britain has co-signed a joint statement with Oman pledging to ensure the safety of its territorial waters. Six weeks after the United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding ending four months of open war, the project of actually reopening the Strait of Hormuz is only now acquiring a military shape.

The Strait carries roughly a fifth of the world's traded oil through a passage barely 33 kilometres wide at its narrowest point. Iran mined parts of the approaches during the conflict. The ceasefire is real. The mines are still there.

The joint statement, issued on July 3 by Britain ...