New Delhi, July 10 -- DUBAI - Six thousand seafarers are stranded in the Persian Gulf. Their ships sit at anchor in waters that, fewer than four weeks ago, were supposed to have been reopened by the memorandum of understanding the United States and Iran signed on June 17. On Thursday, American forces struck Tehran. Iranian forces fired missiles and drones at Gulf installations and at the Azraq military base in Jordan. President Donald Trump, speaking from Ankara on the sidelines of the NATO summit, declared that he believed "the truce is over."

It was not a declaration that surprised anyone who had been paying attention to the strait.

The June 17 MoU produced a ceasefire. It did not produce the political conditions necessary to sustain ...