Iran’s Unchecked Piracy Invites War

Two-hundred and fourteen years ago, America launched its first foreign military campaign to prevent jihadist piracy on the high seas.

Today, America sits idly by as it occurs in the Strait of Hormuz at the hands of jihadist Iran.

Recent Iranian harassment of one American ship in those international waters and the seizure of another one it evidently believed was ours are unmistakable provocations.

The Obama administration is determined to have nothing impinge upon its pursuit of a nuclear deal with the perpetrators of such latter-day Barbary piracy. By so doing, it is making plain to the Iranians that they can continue upping the ante in the negotiations and engage with impunity in ever more provocative behavior at sea and elsewhere.

At some point, that will translate into miscalculations and war.