Can Trump Reopen the Strait?

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
Brian Lehrer on WNYC. So here's a take on the Strait of Hormuz standoff that we might say both sides are losing at the moment. The latest includes President Trump's latest embarrassing stand down. I think it's fair to call it. This time on his very short lived, 20% toll to be paid to the US for passing through the strait. And the fact that the narrow waterway that normally carries roughly a quarter of the world's oil is once again a war zone itself. Another development in the last few days after the ceasefire collapse. On Wednesday today, a handful of vessels attempted to cross hours after the US resumed a naval blockade of Iran and following an upsurge in attacks on ships by Iran. This follows the collapse of the June 17th Memorandum of Understanding, what's referred to by its acronym MOU in a lot of the news media between the US and Iran. President Trump said last week, he believed the ceasefire was over after Iran attacked three tankers transiting Hormuz and the US has since launched repeated rounds of airstrikes and reimposed oil sanctions in retaliation.
So here to help us understand the latest and what options the Trump administration and for that matter Iran has, is in opening the strait is Gregg Carlstrom, Middle East correspondent at The Economist. His latest article is called, Donald Trump has no good options for opening the Strait of Hormuz, yet the standoff has costs for cash strapped Iran too.
Gregg, thanks for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

**Gregg Carlstrom** (1:50)
Thanks for having me, Brian.

**Brian Lehrer** (1:51)
You write that the July peace deal is unraveling, not in spite of the so-called memorandum of understanding, but rather because of it. How so?

**Gregg Carlstrom** (2:01)
So much of this agreement was vaguely worded, which turns out to be a very poor way to draft a diplomatic agreement. So there's a particular dispute here around the fifth paragraph of this MOU, which says that Iran shall make arrangements to ensure the safe passage of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. That's being interpreted differently by the two parties. The Americans read that to mean Iran will remove the mines that it has placed in the Strait. Will make the waterway safe for traffic.
The Iranians read something else into it. They think that language confers upon them a right to administer traffic in the strait, so to decide which vessels are allowed to transit, when they're allowed to do it, to act as a coordinator or an administrator. The Americans obviously disagree with that and don't want Iran to have that role. What we're seeing here is essentially a battle for whether the strait is going to be open to everyone or whether Iran is going to have this sort of veto power, administrative power over Hormuz.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:09)
Right, so the MOU says Iran will quote, make arrangements for the safe passage of commercial vessels. I guess the Trump people and probably a lot of the news media said, great, they're gonna withdraw all that pressure and ships can just go through the strait.
But you wrote, America reads it to mean that Iran will remove mines and unlock the strait. Iran argues that it also confers a right, when they say make arrangements for the safe passage, confers a right to administer traffic. And you write, Trump cannot bomb the strait open. Iran cannot profit if it is shut. So is this sort of mutually assured economic destruction?

**Gregg Carlstrom** (3:52)
It is. It feels like we're back to where we were, maybe in early to mid-April, where the US was imposing a blockade on Iranian shipping. That has now resumed.
Oil sanctions have been reinstated. The strait is effectively shut for both sides at the moment. And so the question is, who is going to blink first? We've seen oil prices, global oil prices, jump by about 15 to 20% over the past 10 days, where they were at about $70 a barrel in early June. They're now up to the mid 80s. Last time I checked, not as high as we saw during the heat of the war, when it was 100 plus a barrel, but still a significant increase. But then for Iran, which is in an economic crisis of its own, suffered extensive damage to industry, to infrastructure because of American and Israeli bombing earlier this year.
People are grappling with unemployment, with high inflation. Iran really needs to straight open as well because it needs to start selling oil. So again, who will blink first? Who is going to feel the pain first? It's not clear.

**Brian Lehrer** (5:06)
And so on the headline of your piece, the Trump has no good options. You lay out three possible options, keep up limited strikes, escalate or seek outside help. On escalation, you write that bombing Iranian infrastructure might be a war crime and that deploying ground troops is almost certainly a non-starter in Washington. Let me ask you about the ground troops scenario.