Iran, U.S. exchange fire amid ceasefire, as Strait of Hormuz standoff exposes Tehran's weakness

Iran launched missiles at U.S. military ships and the United Arab Emirates, and American forces returned fire amid a fragile ceasefire. But Monday's volley exposed the increasingly limited options Tehran faces with a severely diminished military and economy as it tries to counter the U.S. Navy's assistance to commercial ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

While Tehran managed to damage a South Korean tanker and an oil facility in UAE, it suffered the loss of seven gunboats sunk by U.S. return fire and faces increasingly dire circumstances as its drilling wells are near bursting because there is nowhere to ship its oil, experts said.

"This is all sort of coming down to, I believe, the final days here," former Deputy National Security Advisor Victoria Coates told Just the News. "...Iran is obviously still trying to lash out, but the farthest they can get their missiles at this point is UAE. They're looking for proximate targets. They don't even try and shell Israel anymore."

"Their ability to strike others may be very limited, and then they're really out of cards," she added.

Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command, revealed Monday the U.S. military launched an effort to clear the way for dozens of commercial ships trapped in the Arabian Gulf to transit through the Strait of Hormuz off the Iranian coast. The Iranians had responded to this effort by attempting to attack both the commercial ships and the U.S. naval vessels protecting them, he said.

“The cruise missiles were going after those U.S. Navy ships, but mostly after commercial shipping. We defended both ourselves consistent with our commitment,” Cooper explained. “We defended all the commercial ships. We’ve had drone launches against commercial ships, all of which were defended against, consistent with our commitment.

"And then the small boats were all going against commercial ships, and all were sunk by Apaches and Seahawk helicopters," he added.

The admiral said that “there’s been no U.S. military ships hit” and that “there have been no U.S. flagships that have been hit.”

The CENTCOM leader declined to say whether Iran’s attempted strikes were a violation of the weeks-old ceasefire struck between the Trump administration and the remaining Iranian leaders.

“I wouldn’t go into details of whether the ceasefire is over or not. I think the key thing for us is we are merely there as a defensive force and in force to give a very thick layer of defense for commercial shipping to proceed out of the Arabian Gulf," he said. "That is what we are focused on,” the admiral said.

Operation Epic Fury, launched just over two months ago, eliminated a raft of Iranian political and military leaders and did extensive damage to Iranian military capabilities, but the Iranians responded by seeking to control the strait.

President Donald Trump had announced in a Truth Social post on Sunday that the U.S. military would be launching the “Project Freedom” effort to increase freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. The president had also said there would be consequences if the Iranians tried to interfere.

“Countries from all over the World, almost all of which are not involved in the Middle Eastern dispute going on so visibly, and violently, for all to see, have asked the United States if we could help free up their Ships, which are locked up in the Strait of Hormuz, on something which they have absolutely nothing to do with — They are merely neutral and innocent bystanders!” Trump said.

The president said that “for the good of Iran, the Middle East, and the United States, we have told these Countries that we will guide their Ships safely out of these restricted Waterways, so that they can freely and ably get on with their business.”

The president also warned that “if, in any way, this Humanitarian process is interfered with, that interference will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully.” Cooper revealed Monday that the Iranians had indeed sought to interfere with this effort.

Mike Waltz, a former Republican congressman and now the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, tweeted Sunday that “regardless of how you feel about the conflict over their nuclear program, Iran laying sea mines indiscriminately in international waters and attempting to ‘toll’ civilian commercial shipping is illegal and unacceptable.”

He promised that “the U.S. and our Gulf partners will lead the way to defend global freedom of navigation.”

Admiral says blockade continues — and Project Freedom will pursue freedom of navigation

Cooper explained Monday the U.S. naval blockade of Iran was continuing, and that the new Project Freedom effort to help guide commercial ships safely out of the Strait of Hormuz was purely defensive.

“Today, the U.S. military is taking two separate actions in two separate bodies of water. First, we are enforcing the blockade in the Gulf of Oman. There is no commerce going into and out of Iran, and we will be sustaining this effort,” the admiral said. “Second, we have now opened a passage through the Strait of Hormuz to allow for the free flow of commerce to continue.”

The ongoing blockade “is going exactly as designed, and in fact exceeding my expectations,” Cooper added.

That blockade, experts said, is putting Iran's oil industry in an existential crisis because it will soon have to cap overflowing oil wells with nowhere to export the fuel.

"The second front of this war is economic," Coates told the Just the News, No Noise television show on Monday evening. "It is just complete, systematic dismantlement of the Iranian economy. And they have days, not weeks, left in terms of their oil storage. That's 90% of their economy. They're about to lose that. And their currency has lost 98% of its value over the last 10 years."

She added: "The reality is Iran will not exist the way it did before Operation Epic fury, and they have to realize they can't recover without us."

Cooper said the U.S. was employing ballistic missile-capable destroyers, more than 100 land-based and sea-based aircraft, multi-domain unmanned aircraft, and 15,000 U.S. service members to “extend this defensive umbrella across the Strait of Hormuz to defend our forces and also have committed to defend international shipping.”

He said that the vessels stuck in the Arabian Gulf are from 87 countries, and Project Freedom “has been quite enthusiastically received and we’re already beginning to see movement.”

“The president has said that if the process is interfered with, we will react forcefully,” Cooper said. “And over the last 12 hours, Iran has interfered. The IRGC has launched multiple cruise missiles, drones, and small boats at ships we are protecting. We have defeated each and every one of those threats through the clinical application of defensive munitions.”

The U.S. used helicopters to “eliminate” the Iranian small boats threatening commercial shipping, Cooper said.

CENTCOM said on X on Monday that “Iranian state media claims that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hit a U.S. warship with two missiles” but called this a lie.

“TRUTH: No U.S. Navy ships have been struck. U.S. forces are supporting Project Freedom and enforcing the naval blockade on Iranian ports,” CENTCOM said.

Cooper noted Monday that “Iranian military capability has been dramatically degraded these past couple of months.”

The admiral added that multiple U.S. naval vessels had traversed the Strait of Hormuz to carry out this new mission.

“We have gone through the Strait,” Cooper said. “We have multiple U.S. Navy guided missile destroyers operating in the Arabian Gulf. And those destroyers are not just there themselves. They are there to protect commercial shipping. They’ve done so already. And they are part of a broad air defense umbrella that includes helicopters, fighter planes over the top, and also ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance].”

Cooper said that “there is not a specific escort” — meaning that U.S. naval vessels were not individually accompanying each of the commercial vessels as they attempted to sail through the strait — but he said the U.S. strategy was more effective than that.

“I think we have a much better defensive arrangement in this process where we have multiple layers that includes ships, helicopters, aircraft, airborne early warning, electronic warfare — we have a much broader defensive package than you would have ever if you were just escorting,” the admiral said.

CENTCOM tweeted on Monday that “two U.S.-flagged merchant vessels have successfully transited through the Strait of Hormuz and are safely headed on their journey.”

Cooper also seemed confident that the mines laid by the Iranians would not be a problem, arguing that “we have cleared an effective pathway for ships to leave there for the first time” and then “put this defensive umbrella on top of it.”

When asked if Project Freedom was just a one-way effort to get ships out of the strait or whether the U.S. would protect ships going in as well, Cooper replied, “In terms of the pathway cleared, it will ultimately be a two-way path. The most important thing in the interim is getting ships out, and then, over time, we will for sure see ships go in."