Behind the stage of the Pentagon briefing room, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attempted a rhetorical high‑wire act on Tuesday. Confronted by reporters about the exchange of fire in the Strait of Hormuz, Hegseth insisted that the two‑month‑old ceasefire with Iran “is not over”. A day earlier, Iranian missiles and drones had struck a key oil port in the United Arab Emirates, US helicopters had reportedly sunk six Iranian fast‑attack craft, and merchant vessels in the Gulf had been caught in the crossfire. Yet Hegseth calmly dismissed the clashes as “a separate and distinct project” — an operation he labelled “Project Freedom”, that would not jeopardise the broader truce. “We expected there would be some churn at the beginning,” he added with an air of assurance.
The United States has repeatedly framed the Hormuz standoff as a struggle to restore “freedom of navigation.” But Iran’s leadership presents the conflict in starkly different terms. For Tehran, the strait runs along the country’s southern coastline, and its security is a matter of national sovereignty. The Islamic Republic has consistently stated that it is willing to reopen the waterway to all compliant shipping, but only under a clear legal framework that respects Iran’s sovereign rights and only once the US naval blockade of Iranian ports is lifted.
The IRGC Navy has even published a new map delineating an expanded area of Iranian control across the Gulf, stretching from Iran’s Qeshm Island eastward to the UAE port of Fujairah. According to the IRGC, vessels that follow transit protocols established by Iran and coordinate their passage with Iranian authorities will be allowed to transit safely. Those that attempt to violate the new rules or pass under foreign military escort, however, will be “forcefully stopped”.
For all Hegseth’s confident assertions, the reality on the water on Tuesday told a very different story. The grandly titled “Project Freedom” turned out to be far less ambitious than the name suggested. According to reporting by Axios and the Wall Street Journal, the mission did not involve US Navy ships physically escorting commercial vessels past Iranian defences. Instead, US forces were merely “guiding” ships by sharing information about safe lanes and mine‑free routes, a service that Iran has already been offering to vessels that comply with its maritime code.
CENTCOM stated that two US‑flagged merchant vessels had transited the opposite direction and were “safely headed on their journey”. But commercial shipping lines remained deeply hesitant. Hapag‑Lloyd, one of the world’s largest container carriers, confirmed that its risk assessment was unchanged and that transits through the strait were still “not possible” for its vessels. Hundreds of ships and some 20,000 seafarers remained trapped in the Gulf, their fate hanging not on US naval power but on the success of diplomacy. The International Maritime Organisation has documented that commercial vessels have been unable to transit since the conflict began, and the shipping industry knows that military convoys alone cannot restore normal traffic as long as the underlying political crisis remains unresolved.
The gap between Washington’s rhetoric and the facts on the ground became even more apparent when, just hours after Hegseth’s press conference, Tehran released its own account of Monday’s events. Iranian state media reported that IRGC naval forces had successfully repelled a US attempt to force a warship through the strait near the port of Jask. According to the semi‑official Fars News Agency, an American vessel “violated security protocols for transit and navigation” with the clear intent of passing through Iranian waters. CENTCOM quickly denied the report.
The events of 4‑5 May shows just how fragile the two‑month truce has become. US and Iranian forces have exchanged fire on multiple occasions, Iranian missiles have struck an oil port in the UAE, and the Pentagon has acknowledged that Tehran has fired at commercial vessels and seized container ships since the ceasefire was announced. Yet Hegseth continued to insist that the ceasefire was still in place.
From Tehran’s perspective, the choice facing the Trump administration is becoming increasingly stark. Either Washington accepts Iran’s demands, the lifting of the naval blockade, the recognition of Iran’s right to manage Hormuz waters, and a permanent end to hostilities or it continues its current course of provocative but ultimately ineffective operations, and the ceasefire will not survive May.