New Delhi, June 26 -- MUSCAT - For four months, more than 11,000 merchant sailors have waited inside the Persian Gulf, their ships at anchor far from any port that could unload them, their cargo contracts suspended on the other side of a chokepoint the United States and Iran have been fighting over since February. On Tuesday, the International Maritime Organization began the evacuation the shipping industry had been pushing for all those months. By Thursday evening, Iran had stopped it.

The Singapore-flagged container ship Ever Lovely was exiting the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday morning when it was struck on its starboard side by a projectile, 7.5 nautical miles southeast of Oman's port of Dahit. The vessel had not enrolled in the IMO ev...