Good morning. Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, is trying to hold on to his job. President Trump is planning to leave this afternoon for a summit with Xi Jinping. And there’s more news below — including our list of the 100 best restaurants in New York City. First, though, we’re heading to the Strait of Hormuz.
History repeatsPresident Trump said yesterday that U.S. negotiations with Tehran were on “life support.” Why? Among other things, Iran wants to maintain control of the Strait of Hormuz. A fifth of the world’s oil supply flowed through that passage before the war, and now Iran has choked it off. Iranian attacks on passing vessels and a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports have trapped thousands of ships in the Persian Gulf, inducing a global economic crisis. The crisis looms over Trump’s summit with China’s president, Xi Jinping, later this week. Trump wants Xi to lean on Iran to reopen the strait. This keeps happening.
Iran and Iraq stopped ships in the Persian Gulf during the war between those two countries in the 1980s. The conflict spread. Iranian forces intercepted ships bound for Iraq and its allies. It led to a small if deadly naval war that killed more than 400 civilian sailors and damaged 500 commercial vessels along with American warships. Iran’s ability to control the strait is a recurring headache for U.S. military leaders. “If you ask me what keeps me awake at night, it’s the Strait of Hormuz,” one commander said in 2012. Fighting there, another said, “would be like a knife fight in a phone booth.” Who owns the water?Scholars have argued for centuries that no state can lay claim to the high seas, the ocean common. One jurist from the Dutch Golden Age came up with a term for it: mare liberum, or free sea. Which is fine out in the middle of an ocean. It gets a little more complicated closer to shore, and particularly with choke points like the Strait of Hormuz. For decades, the United States has argued that it has a right to freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran, in contrast, has said that it can regulate traffic there. By what right? Can a nation declare the waters off its coastline as its own? How far out do those waters extend? I picked up some light reading: “Legal Vortex in the Strait of Hormuz,” a 2014 paper by James Kraska, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College. It could have been written much more recently — like, in February. We spoke yesterday. Kraska has seen this conflict coming for more than a decade. What’s going on in the strait is fundamentally a legal dispute, he told me. The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, a kind of international constitution for the oceans, governs passage there. Neither Washington nor Tehran has ratified it, but it reflects “customary international law,” which means it is still supposed to be binding, Kraska told me. In other words, Iran can claim that its territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles from its shoreline, which is permitted by the treaty, but only if it recognizes the right of free navigation through those waters. (Free navigation, Kraska noted. Charging a toll, as Iran hopes to do, would break the law.) Kraska told me about a similar conflict between Britain and Albania in the late 1940s, over the channel between Greece and the island of Corfu. In an effort to control that strait, Albania fired on Royal Navy warships. Mines in the strait killed dozens of sailors. It didn’t lead to war. The case became the first one adjudicated by the International Court of Justice. It ruled that Britain enjoyed the right to sail through and that Albania had a duty to keep the strait clear of mines. Albania, a less powerful nation than Iran, complied. The precedent may end there. Heads up: I’ve been hosting this newsletter since November, and it’s been a pleasure getting to know you. Now we’re retooling a bit to keep things fresh. If you have 15 minutes to spare, would you mind sharing your opinions about The Morning here? Thanks. More on the war
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This question comes from a recent edition of the newsletter. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.) David Attenborough, the British naturalist and broadcaster, celebrated his 100th birthday on Friday. Which of the following is NOT true about him?
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I like Ali Slagle’s recipe for asparagus and sausage pasta for these still-a-little-chilly spring evenings when you want some starch and meat alongside the seasonal brightness of asparagus, peas, lemon and a packed cup of basil leaves. If you see some morels at the farmers’ market, grab ’em. They’d be an excellent addition to the dish.
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