The US military operation to facilitate the exit of stranded vessels from the Mideast Gulf is temporary, and the Pentagon is looking to quickly hand over responsibility for the mission to other countries, senior US military officials said on Tuesday.
The US mission to challenge Iran's control over the strait of Hormuz, launched on Monday, enabled two US-flagged vessels to leave the Mideast Gulf, according to the Pentagon. But the operation, dubbed Project Freedom, sparked an exchange of fire between US and Iranian forces, along with drone and missile attacks from Iran on the UAE port of Fujairah and ships off the emirate's coast.
The US operation is "temporary in duration", defense secretary Pete Hegseth said at a briefing on Tuesday. "We're stabilizing the situation so commerce can flow again, but we expect the world to step up at the appropriate time, and soon we will hand responsibility back to you".
Shipping associations have warned that risks to shipping in the strait of Hormuz remain elevated despite the US' military operation. But Hegseth cast the first day of the operation as successful. "We have established a powerful red, white and blue dome over the strait," he said. "We know the Iranians are embarrassed by this fact. They said they control the strait. They do not."
But Tehran also appears to be viewing the results of the military engagement in the strait on Monday as successful.
"The new equation of the strait of Hormuz is in the process of being solidified," Iran's parliamentary speaker Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf posted on social media on Tuesday. "Events in Hormuz make clear that there's no military solution to a political crisis," Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said on Monday, warning the US and the UAE to be "wary of being dragged back into quagmire".
The US and Iran agreed to a ceasefire on 7 April, and that halt to hostilities officially remains in effect, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, General Dan Caine said at the briefing. But the ceasefire did not stop Iran from firing missiles and drones at US warships on Monday, while the US destroyed six Iranian naval boats.
Iran's attacks on US warships, commercial ships and targets in the UAE in the past month are "all below the threshold of restarting major combat operations at this point", Caine said.
But he added: "The threshold of restarting (the war) is a political decision above my pay grade."
Hormuz has remained largely closed to navigation for almost two months. The US since 13 April has been conducting a naval blockade, forcing vessels departing Iranian ports to turn back.
