Troubled waters: Australia bets on Trump in Middle East deployment

Analysts say sending a warship to patrol the Strait of Hormuz risks binding Australia to an incoherent and inflammatory US foreign policy

Australia's announcement this week that it will join US-led freedom of navigation operations patrolling the Strait of Hormuz brings the number of American allies willing to contribute to America's latest Middle East sortie to just three.

The increasing tensions in the narrow, but critical, strait are almost universally regarded as an avoidable, US-created crisis, the result of Washington tearing up the Iran nuclear deal.