A giant billboard reading \u2018The Strait of Hormuz remains closed’ at the Revolution Square in Tehran<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump announced Tuesday evening that he was pausing the day-old US military operation to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz \u201cfor a short period of time,\u201d claiming what he said was \u201cgreat progress\u201d toward an agreement with Iran.<\/p>\n
The reversal, posted to Trump\u2019s Truth Social platform, came only hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio had insisted at a White House briefing that the United States was now \u201cfully focused\u201d on the new mission and that the war on Iran had moved into a separate, post-combat phase.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe operation is over. Epic Fury\u2014as the president notified Congress\u2014we\u2019re done with that stage of it,\u201d Rubio told reporters. \u201cWe\u2019re now onto this Project of Freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hours later, the project Rubio had just declared the focus of US efforts was suspended. At the same time, the US blockade of Iranian ports, Trump said, would \u201cremain in full force and effect.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reversal came amid a deepening crisis for the Trump administration. Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of the world\u2019s seaborne oil and gas passed before the war the United States and Israel launched on February 28. Some 1,600 commercial vessels carrying 20,000 seafarers remain trapped in the Persian Gulf; before the war, around 130 ships transited the strait each day.<\/p>\n
Trump announced the escort operation Sunday, with the US Navy guiding commercial ships along a pathway declared free of Iranian mines. The cease-fire that had held for nearly four weeks broke down within hours. Iranian forces shot at two commercial vessels Monday; the missiles were intercepted by US forces.<\/p>\n
In two days of the escort operation, only three commercial ships made it through: two Monday and one Tuesday. The first US-flagged vessel to exit, the Maersk-operated Alliance Fairfax, transited Monday under what the Pentagon called a defensive \u201cumbrella\u201d of guided-missile destroyers, fighters, helicopters, drones and 15,000 service members. US forces shot down Iranian cruise missiles and drones and destroyed six Iranian speedboats, according to US Central Command. A senior Iranian military official denied on state media that any boats had been sunk.<\/p>\n
The same day, Iran fired drones and missiles at the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The attacks left three Indian sailors injured at an oil industrial zone in Fujairah; an oil tanker was struck; and air defense missiles detonated overhead in Dubai. Two people were injured in the Omani coastal town of Bukha. The UAE imposed airspace restrictions through May 11 and reported GPS jamming. They were the first such strikes on the UAE since a fragile cease-fire took effect on April 8. Iran neither claimed nor denied them.<\/p>\n
Iran on Tuesday announced a new \u201cPersian Gulf Strait Authority\u201d to oversee traffic in the waterway, requiring vessels to obtain transit permits by email. Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy warned that the only safe route was an Iranian-designated corridor and that \u201caction\u201d would be taken against ships deviating from it.<\/p>\n
The Telegraph<\/em> reported Tuesday that the US offer of protection had not allayed the fears of stranded seafarers. An Iranian high-explosive drone fired at a tanker hugging the Omani coast would reach impact in around twenty minutes; an Iranian sea-skimming missile would reach the same target in under a minute. US Central Command commander Adm. Bradley Cooper acknowledged that no ship was being directly escorted: \u201cThere\u2019s no specific escort.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTwo days after Donald Trump announced the start of Operation Project Freedom there has been little sign so far that vessels have rushed to take the chance and make a break for it,\u201d the Telegraph<\/em> reported. Maritime experts told the Telegraph<\/em> that commercial ship owners and their insurers remained unclear how the US protection would work, or whether it would be effective.<\/p>\n Underlying the reversal is a deepening strategic crisis. A New York Times<\/em> analysis Tuesday by Steven Erlanger, \u201cTrump Looks for a Silver Bullet to End the Iran War. There May Be None,\u201d documented Trump\u2019s serial pivots: airstrikes meant to \u201cobliterate\u201d the nuclear program in June 2025; the February air campaign with Israel meant to force regime change; the blockade of Iranian shipping; now the escort operation. Each has failed to break Iranian resistance.<\/p>\n A Reuters analysis by Matt Spetalnick concluded that the standoff \u201ccould leave Trump worse off than before he went to war.\u201d Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told Reuters: \u201cIran has realized that, even in a weakened state, it can shut off the Strait at will.\u201d<\/p>\n A New York Times<\/em> analysis Tuesday by David E. Sanger, \u201cWhite House Insists Iran War Is Over, Even While Missiles Fly,\u201d documented the gap between the administration\u2019s claims and the reality on the ground. \u201cFor the White House, the insistence that the war was over was the latest rhetorical leap in an effort to put a war that has created the greatest political crisis of Mr. Trump\u2019s presidency in the rearview mirror,\u201d Sanger wrote. \u201cBut the mere proclamation does not make it true. Missiles were still flying. Both sides insist they control traffic in the waterway.\u201d<\/p>\n The Democratic Party and the establishment press have criticized Trump from the right\u2014condemning his failure to secure the Strait of Hormuz rather than the criminal character of the war itself. The New York Times<\/em> editorial board wrote last month that \u201cIran continues to defy a central part of the deal and block most traffic from crossing the Strait of Hormuz. Mr. Trump\u2019s irresponsibility has left the United States on the cusp of a humiliating strategic defeat.\u201d<\/p>\n The Pentagon hit roughly 13,000 targets in 38 days of combat operations. Of the five major war goals Trump stated on February 28\u2014preventing Iran from ever getting a nuclear weapon, destroying its ballistic missiles and launchers, sinking its navy, ending its support for Hezbollah and Hamas, and creating conditions for the Iranian people to topple their government\u2014only the destruction of the Iranian navy has been accomplished.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s own language has shifted. He called the war a \u201cminiwar\u201d at a White House small-business event Monday; in earlier speeches he has called it an \u201cexcursion\u201d and a \u201cdetour.\u201d On the eve of the cease-fire he had warned that \u201ca whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.\u201d<\/p>\n Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday that Iran has attacked US forces more than ten times since the cease-fire took effect, but that the attacks have all been \u201cbelow the threshold of restarting major combat operations.\u201d Caine acknowledged that defining the threshold \u201cis a political decision.\u201d Pressed by reporters hours later to specify it, Trump said, \u201cYou\u2019ll find out, because I\u2019ll let you know.\u201d<\/p>\n The Pentagon said the war so far has cost $25 billion, with lawmakers expecting the administration to ask Congress for another $100 billion later this year. Hegseth will testify next week on a roughly $1.5 trillion fiscal year 2027 Pentagon budget request.<\/p>\n