Bangladesh, Feb. 3 -- By any reasonable measure, the Indian Ocean has become one of the worlds most crowded strategic theatres. Sea lanes that carry the bulk of global energy supplies intersect with the ambitions of great powers and the anxieties of small island states. It is against this backdrop that Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzus recent comments on the Chagos Archipelago should be read—not as a casual diplomatic aside, but as a calculated and potentially dangerous move in a region where history, law, and power politics collide.

In an interview with Newsweek, Muizzu floated an extraordinary proposition: if the Chagos Islands were handed over to the Maldives, the United States could continue to operate its naval base at Diego...