Epic Nonsense: Trump Shelves Project Freedom |
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 foolish conflict, 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 why Iran 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.
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........