The waxwork figures of the Pentagon recently glowed with excitement with the announcement that the US military would be finally called upon to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. With the ceasefire between Teheran and Washington barely holding, President Donald Trump, as far as his attention span would allow, gingerly put Operation Epic Fury to the side in favour of a new mission. The effort to protect and navigate stranded and blocked vessels with US armed might would be dubbed Project Freedom.
As with everything in this cerebrally cloudy and foolishconflict, descriptions and names are untethered to a discernible reality. Was Project Freedom separate from the blockade of Iran? Yes, said certain administration officials. Was it an annex to Operation Epic Fury? No one quite knew.
Some details were provided on May 5 by the US Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, at a press briefing. “To be clear [Project Freedom] is separate and distinct from Operation Epic Fury. Project Freedom is defensive in nature, focused in scope and temporary in duration, with one mission: protecting innocent commercial shipping from Iranian aggression.” Iran had been “the clear aggressor” in the Strait, “harassing civilian vessels, threatening mariners from every nation indiscriminately and weaponizing a critical chokepoint for its own financial benefit, or at least trying to.” No mention, naturally, on whyIran had resorted to such measures in the first place.
Much of Hegseth’s press address was a bleat, a complaint that the Iranians had simply not played by the rules, rules happily broken by the Trump administration and their Israeli allies when they felt necessary. Iran had attempted to “impose a tolling system”, using “a form of international extortion”. Project Freedom was the celebrated antidote. “Two US commercial ships, along with American destroyers, have already transited the strait, showing the lane is clear.”
The account untethered to reality followed on cue. Iran had been “embarrassed” by the successful transit of these two vessels. “They say they control the strait. They do not. So, American ships led the way, commercial and military shouldering the initial risk from the front, as Americans always do. And right now, hundreds more ships from nations around the world are lining up to transit.” With lavish immodesty, the Secretary noted that US Central Command (CENTCOM) had, along with partner nations, “been in active communication with hundreds of ships, shipping companies and insurers.” The US had provided a “direct gift” to the world in the form of “a powerful red, white and blue dome over the strait.”
With the counterfeit, grubby appeal of an advertiser’s pitch, Hegseth went on to declare Project Freedom “humanitarian” in nature. “By breaking Iran’s illegal stranglehold, we’re protecting the lives and livelihoods of sailors from dozens of countries, securing global energy routes and preventing shortages that hit the world’s poorest people the hardest.”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine was also on hand to explain that CENTCOM had “established an enhanced security area on the southern side of the strait that is now protected by US land, naval and air assets to help defeat further Iranian aggression against commercial shipping.” He noted that Iranian fast boats and attack drones had been defeated. And how could they not be, given the presence of “more than 100 fighters, attack aircraft and other manned and unmanned aircraft, synchronized by the 82nd Airborne Division” engaged in the air for 24 hours a day guarding “the enhanced security area and its approaches”.
With twenty-four hours, this elaborate, exaggerated, purplish vision of American deliverance from Iranian control to an anxious world had collapsed. On May 6, Trump announcedthat he would be halting Project Freedom. Another round of proposals had been placed on the carousel of confusing diplomacy that might negate the need to resume bombing under Operation Epic Fury. Claiming that Pakistan and other specified countries had wished so, and given “the fact that Great Progress has been made toward a Complete and Final Agreement with the Representatives of Iran”, the blockade would remain in place but “Project Freedom (The Movement of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz) will be paused for a short period of time to see whether or not the Agreement can be finalized and signed.”
Later that day, Trump posted another message. “Assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, which is, perhaps, a big assumption,” he declared on Truth Social, “the alreadylegendary Epic Fury will be at an end, and the highly effective Blockade will allow the Hormuz Strait to be OPEN TO ALL, including Iran.” The inevitable, clownish threat followed: “If they don’t agree, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before.”
The rapid demise of Project Freedom, more aborted than halted, had less to do with the emergence of a new desire to pursue negotiations so much as logistical inconvenience. The Gulf States, by and large, have not been impressed by the impulsive measure, given the potential resumption of hostilities. Tehran was always going to blunt US efforts to break the blockade of the Strait, a point demonstrated by attacks on the United Arab Emirates on May 4 that left an oil refinery in the eastern emirate of Fujairah ablaze and three Indian nationals wounded.
According to a report from NBC News, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was disgruntled enough by the American initiative in the Strait to inform Washington that it would deny the US military any use of the Prince Sultan Airbase to enforce the mission or permit US aircraft to use Saudi airspace to that end. This was despite a call taking place between Trump and the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
An unnamed Saudi source was cited as saying that Saudi Arabia was “very supportive of the diplomatic efforts” led by Pakistan in aiding Iran and the US terminate the conflict,while a US official put it in simple terms as to why Project Freedom could only dissipate in impotence: “Because of geography, you need cooperation from regional partners to utilize their airspace along their borders.”
From the embers of the Trump administration’s latest bungleemerged a one-page memorandum of understandingWashington has reportedly drawn up for further discussions with Tehran. It reportedly contains 14 points, covering, for instance, a declaration ending the war and the commencement of a 30-day period of negotiations on a detailed agreement that would see Iran reopen the Strait over that duration. This would be complemented by the lifting of the US naval blockade. Restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program and the lifting of US sanctions also feature. Failing all that, the blockade or a resumption of military operations could take place. How chillingly close this is to those remarks of T. S. Eliot in the Four Quartets: “What we call the beginning is often the end/And to make and end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” This war was a beginning, and an end, we never needed.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
