Top U.S. officials spent Monday and Tuesday offering new details on the role the U.S. military will play in helping ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s bid to break Iran’s chokehold over the waterway.
Hours later, Trump shelved the operation entirely after being warned it risked escalating a conflict he is eager to bring to an end.
That decision — which Trump said he made at the request of mediator Pakistan — suggested the president didn’t want to risk another flare-up in violence like the one provoked in the first day the operation called Project Freedom went into effect.
