New Delhi, June 18 -- LONDON - The Defence Secretary spent Monday afternoon explaining to the House of Commons why British surveillance aircraft and a Royal Fleet Auxiliary support vessel had been used in January to help the United States Navy seize a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the North Atlantic. The hearing was scheduled five months ago. The political weather around it changed on the morning the United States and Iran finalised the memorandum that ended the war the seizure was meant to enforce.

The ship in question was the Marinera, formerly the Bella-1, intercepted between Iceland and Scotland on January 7. The cargo was Iranian crude. The flagging arrangement was Russian, the operating chain stretched through three intermediaries ...