ANALYSIS \u2014 Even if a recent flareup of military skirmishes in the Middle East merely continues but does not escalate, the clashes cast doubt on President Donald Trump\u2019s formal assertion to Congress on May 1 that hostilities between American and Iran have \u201cterminated.\u201d<\/p>\n
The renewed fighting has put intense strain on a tenuous ceasefire in the wider war. In Washington, the surge in combat solidifies a sense that the war\u2019s economic shock waves and electoral risks will not soon subside.<\/p>\n
On May 3, Trump announced the launch of what he called a project, \u201cProject Freedom,\u201d not an operation, such as \u201cOperation Epic Fury,\u201d the name for the broader war with Iran. In a May 1 letter to Congress, Trump cited the ongoing ceasefire with Iran as evidence that the conflict had been \u201cterminated,\u201d and the 60-day deadline for either official congressional approval or withdrawal of U.S. troops under the War Powers Resolution no longer applied.<\/p>\n
Project Freedom involves U.S. military warships and combat aircraft helping escort commercial ships \u2014 at least two U.S.-flagged merchant ships so far \u2014 through a narrow passageway cleared of sea mines in the Persian Gulf\u2019s Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
During a Tuesday briefing with reporters, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sought to differentiate the two missions.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be clear, this operation is separate and distinct from Operation Epic Fury,\u201d Hegseth said. \u201cProject Freedom is defensive in nature, focused in scope and temporary in duration, with one mission, protecting innocent commercial shipping from Iranian aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hegseth and Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the initiative falls short of \u201cmajor combat operations\u201d and does not violate the nearly four-week-old ceasefire, even as Caine said defining when combat becomes major is \u201ca political decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the words of Hegseth and Caine, in combination with news reports, reveal how massive the U.S. military operation is, how violent the clashes at sea have been between U.S. and Iranian forces and how Iran is once again retaliating by launching missile attacks on other nations in the region.<\/p>\n
Large-scale mission<\/p>\n
Trump, in remarks at the White House on Monday, called the spate of recent skirmishes a \u201cmini war\u201d and a \u201clittle detour.\u201d The president has also said on occasion that the U.S. has already won the war.<\/p>\n
But neither the scale of the U.S. military operations in and around the Persian Gulf nor the extent of Iran\u2019s response is small by any measure.<\/p>\n
Caine said America has some 15,000 troops focused on Project Freedom as well as two of the four deployed U.S. aircraft carriers plus their accompanying vessels. The contingent of 15,000 troops is more than America has deployed in any single nation except Germany, Japan and South Korea.<\/p>\n
Hegseth said the project entails \u201chundreds\u201d of drones, attack helicopters and fighter jets \u2014 or more than the roughly 150 aircraft used in the raid to capture former Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, a mission categorized as \u201cOperation Absolute Resolve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides Project Freedom, the U.S. Navy is enforcing a blockade on shipping into and out of Iranian ports \u2014 an action that would typically be considered an act of war under international law and by prior U.S. administrations.<\/p>\n
For example, President John F. Kennedy\u2019s Justice Department in 1961 allowed that the president\u2019s Cuba blockade \u201cis a belligerent act which, as a matter of international law, is ordinarily justified only if a state of war, legal or de facto, exists,\u201d while justifying the blockade as \u201can incident to a state of war.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hegseth said the U.S. Navy has \u201cturned around\u201d six ships trying to \u201crun the blockade out of Iranian ports.\u201d<\/p>\n
The extent of the U.S. military\u2019s potential task is also enormous. Some 1,550 merchant ships carrying 22,500 mariners are trapped in the Persian Gulf because of the choking off of trade through the strait, Caine said.<\/p>\n
Hegseth said that the Navy\u2019s escort of ships through the strait show Iranians \u201cdon\u2019t control\u201d it.<\/p>\n
But for the vast majority of the 1,550 ships trapped in the Persian Gulf, the strait is not yet open.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s response, even if relatively limited so far, has been fierce.<\/p>\n
Just this week, Iran \u201claunched cruise missiles, drones, small boats at U.S. forces defending commercial shipping in the strait,\u201d Caine said.<\/p>\n
On Monday, U.S. military helicopters fended off attacks by six Iranian attack boats and sank them, Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, told reporters that day.<\/p>\n
Also on Monday, Iran resumed attacks on its neighbors. Iran fired 15 ballistic missiles and four drones at the United Arab Emirates, that country said, and airspace there has been restricted.<\/p>\n
Iran resumed those attacks on Tuesday, the UAE Defense Ministry reported.<\/p>\n
Caine said Iran also hit Oman, without elaborating on details. Oman had previously reported a residential building near the strait had been struck.<\/p>\n
Pressure in Washington<\/p>\n
The back-and-forth attacks could subside.<\/p>\n
\u201cThus far, today is quieter,\u201d Caine said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
But there is no guarantee the skirmishes will not continue and even expand.<\/p>\n
All this generates heat in Washington, but it is not clear what if anything Congress might do to constrain the president\u2019s actions in the Middle East, endorse them or something in between.<\/p>\n
When Congress returns next week, lawmakers will discuss a possible vote soon on a war authorization measure.<\/p>\n
If that authorization vote occurs but falls short, it will indirectly send a message that Congress does not back the campaign, though it is not likely to have great effect on Trump\u2019s decisions on the Middle East.<\/p>\n
The war is unpopular in America and has been a drag on Republicans\u2019 electoral chances in the midterms, which are now six months off.<\/p>\n
In a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll conducted in late April, 61 percent of respondents said using force against Iran was a mistake.<\/p>\n
Fewer than 2 in 10 Americans believe the war has been a success, the poll showed. Four in 10 say it has been unsuccessful, while another 4 in 10 say it is too soon to tell.<\/p>\n
House Democrats, led by Rep. Pat Ryan of New York, are introducing legislation that would cut off funding for the war if the conflict does not receive congressional authorization.<\/p>\n
But the odds of that effort succeeding currently appear no better than the recent series of failed war powers resolutions in both chambers calling for a pullout of U.S. troops absent an authorization.<\/p>\n
If Congress were to clear an authorization to use military force against Iran, it would probably contain some limits on the president\u2019s conduct of the war \u2014 perhaps including its duration. At a minimum, it would include \u201cmetrics for success, notice of any changes in objectives and exit criteria,\u201d according to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who is writing one such measure.<\/p>\n
Yet Trump might call any such restrictions unconstitutional and defy them.<\/p>\n
Then there is the real possibility that Congress is unable to muster the majorities needed to clear any measure on Iran at all, which would effectively leave the president unhindered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANALYSIS \u2014 Even if a recent flareup of military skirmishes in the Middle East merely continues but does…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1726,32907,614,1272,9421,467,648,1275,687,1277,1280,34,12674,22107,179,1488,4204,1287,445,1983,392,1527,1705,1537],"class_list":{"0":"post-99505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-air-force","9":"tag-alaska","10":"tag-american","11":"tag-brand-safety","12":"tag-campaigns","13":"tag-congress","14":"tag-defense","15":"tag-democrats","16":"tag-drones","17":"tag-executive-branch","18":"tag-house","19":"tag-iran","20":"tag-joint-chiefs-of-staff","21":"tag-lisa-murkowski","22":"tag-military","23":"tag-navy","24":"tag-new-york","25":"tag-polling","26":"tag-trade","27":"tag-troops","28":"tag-trump","29":"tag-u-s-navy","30":"tag-washington","31":"tag-white-house"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116524139318896824","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}