United States President Donald Trump has said the Iran war and US blockade of Iranian ports could end with a deal, warning, however, that strikes will restart if one isn’t reached.
“If they don’t agree, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before,” Trump wrote in a social media post.
Earlier, Trump announced the US would pause its operation to guide stranded ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian state media hailed the move as a victory, saying Trump has “retreated” and accuses the president of trying to “cover up the failure” of his operation.
The Pentagon has said that around 22,500 mariners on 1,550 vessels remain trapped, with ship-tracking data obtained on Wednesday showing little movement near the strait.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the offensive stage of the Iran war is “over” – Tehran has not responded to these remarks.
Trump’s announcement that Project Freedom was being put on hold yesterday caught many by surprise, particularly after top officials spent the day discussing the plan and its goals.
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Soon after, reports in Axios and Reuters suggested that a framework of a deal was right around the corner, which would have marked a significant milestone for the US president.
But now, Trump appears to be cautioning that a deal may well not come soon.
In his most recent Truth Social post, Trump said that any agreement by the Iranians is “a big assumption” and that a failure to come to a deal will result in bombardments “at a much higher level and intensity” than was the case during ‘Operation Epic Fury’.
We don’t know much about the president’s thinking on where things stand. It may well be that Project Freedom was, in part, an effort to calm panicky global markets with a promise of renewed freedom of commerce and navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.
But as things stand, the situation remains very similar to what it was last week, with more than 1,000 ships still stuck in the Persian Gulf.
The plight of the majority of the sailors on those ships remains unchanged, despite Project Freedom’s stated objective of coming to their aid.
