US Pauses 'Project Freedom' Military Operation as Trump Pursues Iran Ceasefire Deal

On May 4, President Donald Trump unveiled Operation Project Freedom with the kind of fanfare typically reserved for major military campaigns: 15,000 service members, ballistic missile defense-capable destroyers, more than 100 aircraft, and multi-domain unmanned platforms — all deployed to break Iran's chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz [1][2]. One day later, he paused the entire operation.

The reason, according to Trump: "Great Progress…toward a Complete and Final Agreement with the Representatives of Iran" [3]. The US naval blockade of Iranian ports would remain, he said, but Project Freedom's ship escort mission would halt "for a short period of time" [4].

The whiplash has left allies confused, critics emboldened, and energy markets scrambling to price in what comes next.

The Strait That Holds the World Hostage

Roughly 20% of the world's oil and natural gas supply transits the Strait of Hormuz on a normal day — more than 120 ships daily before the war [5]. Since Iran began disrupting commercial shipping, that figure has collapsed. During the blockade, approximately 8 ships per day were making the transit. On Project Freedom's single operational day, only 4 ships crossed [6].

Source: Al Jazeera, CNBC

Data as of May 6, 2026CSV

The consequences for energy markets have been severe. Brent crude surpassed $100 per barrel on March 8, 2026, for the first time in four years, eventually peaking at $126 per barrel [5]. On the day Project Freedom launched, Brent settled at $114.40 — its highest close of the year [7]. When Trump announced the pause on May 5, Brent fell 2.8% to $106.70, while WTI slipped 3.3% to $98.80 [8].

Source: CNBC, Al Jazeera, CNN

Data as of May 6, 2026CSV

The WTI benchmark tells the longer story. From a low of $55.44 in December 2025, WTI surged 57.8% year-over-year to reach $114.58 during the April peak, driven almost entirely by the Hormuz crisis [9].

Source: FRED / EIA

Data as of Apr 27, 2026CSV

Countries most exposed to a Hormuz closure include Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, and Qatar — all of which depend on the strait for the vast majority of their hydrocarbon exports. Asian importers — Japan, South Korea, India, and China — face the most acute supply risk [5].

What Was Deployed — and What It Cost

The Pentagon described Project Freedom as "defensive in nature, focused in scope, temporary in duration" [2]. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the mission had "one mission: protecting innocent commercial shipping from Iranian aggression" [10].

The deployment was substantial: ballistic missile defense-capable destroyers, over 100 land and sea-based aircraft, multi-domain unmanned platforms, and 15,000 service members extending a "defensive umbrella" across the strait [1][2]. During its single day of operations, US forces reported destroying eight Iranian boats and intercepting cruise missiles and drones [4]. Iran's Revolutionary Guard responded by issuing an expanded control map of the waterway, warning vessels to stay within designated corridors [11].

No official cost figures for Project Freedom have been publicly released. For comparison, the 2019 International Maritime Security Construct — a freedom-of-navigation deployment in the same waters following Iranian mine attacks on tankers — involved a far smaller footprint of a few warships and surveillance assets, and did not face active Iranian military opposition. The scale of the 2026 deployment, with its air defense umbrella and active combat, is of a different order entirely.

Iran's 14-Point Proposal and the Deal on the Table

The pause emerged against the backdrop of an evolving negotiation track mediated by Pakistan. On April 8, Pakistan brokered a two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran, which was extended indefinitely on April 21 [12]. Despite the ceasefire, General Dan Caine reported that Iran attacked US forces more than 10 times since the announcement [4].

In early May, Iran submitted a 14-point proposal to end the war. The plan calls for ending hostilities within 30 days and includes guarantees against future attacks, withdrawal of US forces from around Iran, release of frozen Iranian assets, lifting of sanctions, war reparations, ending hostilities in Lebanon, and "a new mechanism for the Strait of Hormuz" [13]. Crucially, Iran wants its right to uranium enrichment guaranteed under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while leaving substantive nuclear negotiations for later [14].

Trump rejected this framing. His administration insists Iran must conduct "zero enrichment" and must first end the Hormuz blockade before other issues are addressed [15]. By May 6, Axios reported that US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were negotiating a one-page memorandum of understanding with Iranian officials that would declare an end to the war and open a 30-day window for detailed negotiations on the strait, Iran's nuclear program, and sanctions relief [16].

No independent verification mechanism has been proposed in the current talks. This stands in stark contrast to the 2015 JCPOA framework, which included IAEA continuous monitoring, the Additional Protocol granting inspectors access to any suspected site, and detailed technical annexes running hundreds of pages [17].

The Legal Fog of an Undeclared War

Project Freedom operates within a broader conflict — Operation Epic Fury — that has no Congressional authorization. The Trump administration launched strikes against Iran on February 28, 2026, without seeking an Authorization for Use of Military Force. A Senate resolution by Senators Tim Kaine and Rand Paul to halt operations failed 47–53 in early March. A House resolution by Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie also failed [18]. In total, six Congressional attempts to stop or authorize the war have been defeated [19].

May 1 marked the 60-day deadline under the War Powers Resolution, after which a president must obtain Congressional approval or withdraw forces. Hegseth told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the ceasefire "pauses or stops" the 60-day clock [19]. Trump wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson that "the hostilities that began on February 28, 2026, have terminated" [20].

Legal scholars have pushed back. Katherine Yon Ebright of the Brennan Center called this interpretation a "sizeable extension of previous legal gamesmanship," noting "nothing in the text or design of the War Powers Resolution suggests that the 60-day clock can be paused or terminated" [19]. Senator Kaine rejected the administration's reading outright [19]. Johnson, for his part, told NBC News that Congress does not need to act because the US is "not at war" [20].

Senator Lisa Murkowski has been developing an AUMF she described as both an authorization and a "restraint," which she intends to introduce if the 60-day mark passes without a credible plan [21].

Gulf States: United on the Ceasefire, Divided on Everything Else

The Gulf Cooperation Council welcomed the US-Iran ceasefire on April 9 with consensus on three points: preserving the ceasefire, restoring freedom of navigation, and achieving a lasting resolution [22]. Beneath that surface agreement, however, Gulf states are pursuing divergent strategies.

Saudi Arabia has aligned closely with Pakistan — the key mediator — and supports the negotiation track. Riyadh's priorities center on reopening the Strait and securing guarantees against direct attacks. Iranian strikes on April 8 reduced Saudi oil production by 600,000 barrels daily, reinforcing the kingdom's incentive for de-escalation [22].

The UAE has taken a harder line, insisting on "long-lasting guarantees for regional stability beyond a nuclear deal — including the dismantling of Iran's long-range capabilities and proxy networks" [22]. Abu Dhabi suffered the highest number of successful Iranian strikes and has been intercepting Iranian missile and drone attacks for consecutive days [11]. A recent diplomatic call between UAE Vice President Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan and Iran's parliamentary speaker suggests some pragmatic hedging [22].

Whether Gulf allies were consulted before the Project Freedom pause is unclear. The available evidence suggests they were not. When CNN asked whether Saudi Arabia was consulted on a related major decision, UAE Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said it was "a sovereign national decision" — language that implies a lack of coordination [23].

Does the Pause Reward Iranian Brinkmanship?

The strongest version of this argument runs as follows: Iran blockaded an international waterway, attacked US forces during a ceasefire, struck UAE territory with missiles and drones, and has been rewarded with a pause in the only operation designed to restore freedom of navigation. The precedent this sets — that Iran can escalate to gain leverage and then extract concessions at the negotiating table — could incentivize future nuclear or proxy provocations.

Senator Lindsey Graham has signaled that anything short of a decisive military victory over the Revolutionary Guard Corps risks projecting weakness [21]. Defense analysts have warned that "maintaining safe passage would require indefinite convoy operations, expanded base defense and acceptance of persistent pressure from Iran," and that if "Iranian attacks intensify or U.S. vessels are struck, Washington would face a choice between standing down the operation or escalating militarily" [24].

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi appeared to reinforce this framing by calling the operation "Project Deadlock" and warning "there's no military solution to a political crisis" [4].

The counterargument is pragmatic: Project Freedom managed to escort only 4 ships in a single day against a pre-war average of 120, suggesting the operation was not achieving its stated objective. The Trump administration's signals to calm the confrontation also come as polling shows the war growing unpopular with Republican voters ahead of the midterm elections [25].

Iranian Domestic Politics: Who Wins From the Pause?

The ceasefire and subsequent diplomatic activity have cracked open long-standing divisions within Iran's political elite [26]. The central fault line is between pragmatists willing to negotiate and ultra-hardliners who view any engagement with Washington as capitulation.

Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led Iran's delegation in talks with Vice President JD Vance in Pakistan, has the backing of 261 of 290 members of parliament [26]. Though himself a hardliner considered close to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, Ghalibaf has aligned with reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian in pushing back against critics.

The ultra-hardline Paydari faction has led the opposition. Mahmoud Nabavian, a prominent Paydari voice, declared that "negotiations are now pure damage and nobody should go for negotiations," calling the nuclear program's inclusion in talks a "strategic mistake" [26]. The faction has implied that negotiators are not following directives from the new supreme leader.

The succession of Mojtaba Khamenei to the supreme leadership — following his father Ali Khamenei's death — has compounded the uncertainty. The younger Khamenei lacks four decades of experience managing factional conflicts, and the war has weakened long-standing power structures, accelerating a struggle over the Islamic Republic's political direction [26][27].

Pragmatists and institutional moderates argue that Iran cannot endure indefinite isolation and see sanctions relief, controlled reform, and reintegration into the international order as essential to state survival [27]. For these figures, the US pause provides political cover. For hardliners, the pause is evidence that resistance works — a narrative that could strengthen their hand domestically even as it complicates negotiations.

Echoes of the JCPOA — and Where the Comparison Breaks Down

The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action took approximately 18 months of intensive multilateral negotiations, culminating in a marathon 19-day session in Vienna [28]. The resulting agreement ran hundreds of pages with detailed technical annexes. Iran agreed to reduce its centrifuges from nearly 20,000 to just over 5,000, cap uranium enrichment at 3.67% purity, and reduce its stockpile from over 7,000 kg to 300 kg [17].

The verification framework was extensive: IAEA continuous monitoring, the Additional Protocol granting inspectors access to any suspected site (in some cases within 24 hours), and a dispute resolution mechanism that could snap back UN sanctions [17].

The current talks bear little structural resemblance. Negotiations are bilateral (US-Iran), mediated by Pakistan rather than conducted through a P5+1 multilateral framework. The timeline is compressed — the one-page MOU being negotiated envisions a 30-day window for a comprehensive agreement [16]. Former Obama-era negotiator Wendy Sherman has warned: "You cannot do a negotiation with Iran in one day. You can't even do it in a week" [28].

The trust deficit is also far deeper. Rob Malley, who participated in the JCPOA talks, noted that "the level of trust is probably almost at an all-time low" [28]. Iran faced Israeli airstrikes in June 2025 and February 2026 during prior rounds of negotiation, making Tehran reluctant to surrender tangible assets like enriched uranium without ironclad guarantees [28]. Since military strikes on safeguarded facilities, the IAEA has not been granted access to damaged sites, and the agency confirmed in May 2025 that Iran possesses over 400 kg of uranium enriched to 60% purity — a nearly 50% increase since February of that year [29].

No verification framework comparable to the JCPOA's has been proposed in the current talks. Without one, any resulting agreement would face what the Carnegie Endowment has described as a "he said, she said" dynamic on nuclear compliance [29].

What Happens Next

The Project Freedom pause leaves several threads unresolved. The US naval blockade of Iran remains in effect, maintaining economic pressure on Tehran. Hundreds of commercial ships remain queued in or near the strait, waiting for safe passage [4]. The one-page MOU under negotiation could produce a framework within days — or collapse, reopening the question of whether Project Freedom resumes and what happens when it does.

Congress has yet to assert its constitutional war-making authority, and the 60-day War Powers clock remains the subject of a legal dispute with no resolution mechanism. Gulf allies are pursuing their own bilateral channels with Tehran. And in Iran, the factional struggle between pragmatists and hardliners will shape whether any agreement survives domestic politics on the other side.

The price of oil — and the broader trajectory of the conflict — depends on whether the diplomatic window Trump has opened proves to be a genuine path to resolution or another pause before escalation.