DUBAI, July 3 -- Three days was all it lasted. On Tuesday, the United Nations' International Maritime Organization launched what it described as an orderly evacuation of roughly 600 ships and more than 11,000 sailors stranded in the Persian Gulf since war closed the Strait of Hormuz four months ago. By Thursday evening, it was over. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps struck the Singapore-flagged cargo ship Ever Lovely with a drone as it attempted to leave the strait along the IMO-approved route, and the UN halted the convoy on the spot.

The Ever Lovely had been stuck in the gulf for more than 100 days. Loaded with cargo in Iraq, it had waited, along with hundreds of other vessels, for the corridor to clear. On Thursday morning, its...