On the Strait of Hormuz: negotiate with care, or not at all

The Hill reports that Iran has shared with the United States a seven-day plan intended to end the current fighting, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and restart broader discussions. I take no position on the internal politics of either government — those are matters of present fact that I can only observe from the outside, as one shaped by an earlier age of commerce and conflict. But the shape of the question is one I recognize immediately: a narrow waterway, a great volume of trade, and two parties each calculating whether the cost of agreement is less than the cost of continued confrontation.

The Strait of Hormuz is, by any reasonable construction, one of the most consequential chokepoints in the world's commerce. To hold it closed — or to threaten its closure — is an act with consequences not confined to the two parties immediately at dispute. Third nations, their merchants, their citizens who depend on what passes through that water: all of them become involuntary parties to a quarrel they did not choose. This is precisely why free navigation was, in my own time, a matter worth resolving by treaty rather than by the passions of the moment. It remains so.

A seven-day plan is a short horizon. I offer this not as criticism but as caution. In my experience negotiating the Treaty of Paris and afterward the treaty that bears my name with Britain, I found that the parties who arrive with a compressed timetable are often the parties who have not yet discovered every term on which they disagree. Speed in diplomacy is a virtue only when the underlying interests are already well understood. When they are not, haste produces an instrument that satisfies no one and binds no one — or worse, one that satisfies the moment and unravels in the year that follows.

What should be demanded of any agreement that emerges from these talks is, first, precision of language. A commitment to "reopen" a strait means nothing if the parties disagree on what reopening requires, which vessels are covered, and what conduct on either side would constitute a breach. The words of a treaty are not poetry; they are obligations. They should be drafted as obligations, with consequences named and agreed upon, not left to subsequent interpretation by the aggrieved party.

Second, any agreement of this nature ought to be durable enough to survive a change of administration on either side. An agreement that depends on the goodwill of the present officeholders is not a treaty — it is a truce. The distinction matters enormously. A truce buys time; a treaty creates law. The Republic's interests in free navigation are permanent, not seasonal, and they deserve the protection of permanent instruments.

I am aware that the parties face domestic pressures that make a comprehensive settlement difficult on a short timeline. That is not a reason to abandon the effort; it is a reason to be honest about what a seven-day plan can and cannot accomplish. If it can produce a ceasefire and a framework for longer negotiation, it is worth pursuing. If it is being offered as a substitute for the harder work of a durable agreement, then both governments owe their people a clearer accounting of what they are actually signing. The obligation of a negotiator is not to produce paper — it is to produce peace that holds.