Trump announced on Sunday that the United States will begin
guiding commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz starting
Monday, the 1st active U.S. military assertion of
navigational authority inside the straits since the war began.
Central Command confirmed the operation will involve guided
missile destroyers, more than 100 aircraft and 15,000 service
members. Iran immediately warned it is a
ceasefire violation. A tanker was hit by unknown
projectiles in the Strait within hours of the announcement.
Iran has received the US written response to its 14 point
proposal and is reviewing it. Trump said his representatives
are having very positive discussions with Iran.
American petrol prices have reached $4.45 a gallon, up
nearly 50% since February 28th in Iran's parliament is
preparing to pass a law formally restricting which vessels may
transit the Strait. It is Monday, May 4th, 2026, day
66 of Operation Epic Fury. American warships are moving
through the Strait of Hormuz today for the first time since
the war began. Iran says it is a ceasefire
violation. The tanker was hit in the Strait
within hours of the announcement.
The proposal exchange between the two sides is now bi
directional through Pakistan and the war has entered a new
operational phase simultaneously with the most intensive written
diplomatic exchange of its entire 66 day duration.
This is episode 66 of Epic Fury, the US Iran War podcast.
Follow on Spotify and Apple Podcast to stay with this story
as it develops. Let's get into it.
Begin with the Hormones guided transit operation because it is
the most significant U.S. military action since the
blockade began on April 13th and because its operational and
diplomatic implications are immediate and still developing
as of this morning. Trump announced on Sunday
evening that the United States will begin guiding commercial
vessels through the Strait of Hormuz starting Monday, a
decision taken at the same time AUS written response to Iran's
proposal was being transmitted through Pakistan.
U.S. Central Command confirmed the
operational details guided missile destroyers, more than
100 aircraft and 15,000 service members in the broader Regional
Operational zone. AUS official clarified that the
initiative is not a convoy escort mission in the formal
naval sense, meaning US warships will not be physically
surrounding individual commercial vessels and defending
them against attack. The framing instead is that the
US military will be present in and around the straight in
significant force to enable commercial transit that the
Iranian IRGC has been obstructing since the war began.
The practical distinction between guided transit and a
formal convoy escort is from the perspective of the IRGC gunboat
commanders in the straight. Academic American warships are
moving through. American aircraft are overhead.
the US military is physically present in a waterway that Iran
claims to control. Iran's response came within
hours. Ibrahim Azizi, head the Iranian
parliament's National Security Commission, posted on social
media that any American interference in the new maritime
regime of the Strait of Hormuz will be considered a violation
of the ceasefire. He added that the Strait of
Hormuz in the Persian Gulf will not be managed by Trump's
delusional posts, language that is notably contemptuous and is
not the language of a parliament official trying to preserve
diplomatic space. That response from a senior
Iranian legislative figure, not from the military command,
reflects the institutional breadth of Iranian opposition to
any US assertion of navigational authority in the Strait.
Iran's parliament is simultaneously passing a new law
that would formally codify which vessels are permitted to transit
the Strait and under what conditions, the legislative
answer to the American military assertion of navigational
rights. The combination of the
parliamentary law and the IRGCS operational control produces a
legal and military architecture that Iran can use to defend the
closure as a sovereign exercise rather than a belligerent act.
Within hours of Trump's announcement and as Ises public
warning, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center
reported that a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz had been hit by
unknown projectiles. The UKMTO issued a security
alert for vessels in the area. All crew were reported safe.
The nature and origin of the projectiles were not immediately
confirmed. Unknown projectiles is the UKMTO
standard formulation for a strike that has not yet been
attributed to a specific actor or weapon system.
Whether the strike was an IRGC action in direct operational
response to Trump's guided transit announcement, a rapid
signal from the military organization that controls the
Straight about the consequences of the American assertion, or
whether it was a pre planned IRGC operation that happened to
coincide with the announcements. Timing is not yet established as
of this morning's recording. The attribution question matters
significantly for how the incident is processed legally
and diplomatically. The sequencing, regardless of
attribution, tells its own operational story.
Trump announces guided transit starting Monday, Iran warns it
is a ceasefire violation, and a tanker is hit in the same
waterway within the same operational cycle.
That sequence, whatever its precise causal structure,
defines the physical reality in which the guided transit is
beginning today, commercial shipping operators watching that
sequence announcement Iran's ceasefire violation warning
tanker hit, are making real time decisions about whether to route
vessels through the straight under American military
guidance, knowing that the threat is active and the
ceasefire characterization of any response from the US side is
already disputed. The promise of US naval
protection is real. The risk of IRGC attack remains
real. The insurance premium for a
vessel transiting a waterway where a tanker was just hit by
unknown projectiles, regardless of who hit it or why, is not
going to fall overnight. The guided transit operation is
the United States asserting its navigational authority in the
straight by physical presence. The tanker strike within hours
of the announcement is the immediate real world test of
whether that authority can be maintained without producing a
direct IRGCUS Navy military engagement.
The guided transit announcement is the United States asserting,
through naval force rather than diplomatic language, the
navigational rights position it has maintained throughout the 66
days of this conflict. It is the physical execution of
what Trump has been saying for weeks, that the Strait is an
international waterway, that Iran has no legal authority to
close it, that the US military will ensure its operation as
such. Moving warships through is not
saying it, it is doing it. The operational scale, 15,000
service members more than 100 aircraft guided missile
destroyers is not a token assertion of navigational
rights. It is a force that makes IRGC
interference with a guided transit into a direct military
confrontation with the United States Navy, rather than an act
against a commercial tanker. The IRGC has been able to fire
on tankers carrying no national military backing because the
risk calculation was manageable. 1 gunboat against one commercial
vessel, A tanker moving through the Strait under the operational
umbrella of 15,000 American service members and more than
100 aircraft is a categorically different risk calculation.
Every IRGC commander in the Strait must now calculate
whether the cost of interfering with a vessel transiting under
American military guidance is a cost the IRGC can absorb.
At the same time. The distinction the US official
drew Guided transit, not a convoy escort mission, is
diplomatically deliberate. A formal convoy escort mission
would explicitly assert AUS military obligation to defend
commercial vessels against attack.
That framing would be a formal act of war against Iran in the
event of IRGC interference. Not calling it a convoy escort
preserves the semantic space for the ceasefire to technically
remain in force even as American warships move through the
waterway. The distinction may not survive
the next IRGC gunboat encounter, but it is the framing the
administration has chosen and it reflects the same dual register
logic that has defined this entire conflict.
Maximum military pressure, Minimum formal war declaration.
Turn now to the proposal exchange because the US response
to Iran's 14 point proposal has been conveyed through Pakistan
and the diplomatic exchange is now for the first time in the 66
day conflict genuinely by directional.
Iran's state media confirmed on Sunday that Washington had sent
a written reply to Iran's 14 point proposal by a Pakistani
intermediaries. Iran's foreign ministry
spokesperson Esmail Baghiya said Iran is reviewing the US
response. There was no immediate
confirmation of the contents from Washington or Islamabad.
The absence of a public US confirmation is itself
consistent with the administration's approach to the
private track. Trump confirmed it exists on
Thursday, declined to describe its contents and said only he
and a handful of others know the status.
The fact that the US responded in riding through the same
Pakistani channel through which Iran submitted its proposal is
structurally significant. Throughout most of this process,
the communication pattern has been Iran sends a proposal,
Washington rejects it publicly. Iran sends a revised proposal.
Washington says it is not satisfying.
That is A1 directional exchange. Iran proposes the US responds
through the media. AUS written response conveyed
through Pakistan transforms the structure.
Both sides are now sending written documents through the
same intermediary. Pakistan is carrying both
papers, The bilateral written exchange that professional
mediators have been trying to establish for weeks.
The structure in which both parties can respond to specific
points, adjust language, and build toward a shared framework
is now operational. Whether the US response accepts
any of Iran's 14 points, adjust the US nine point framework or
simply restates the American position in written form is not
yet known publicly, but the structure of a written exchange
now exists. Trump's own framing of the
diplomatic state on Sunday was more positive than any statement
he has made since the ceasefire extension.
He told reporters that his representatives are having very
positive discussions with Iran. That is not his usual
formulation of the Iran talks. He has been saying Iran wants to
make a deal, but he is not satisfied that they have not
paid enough for 47 years, that the military is ready to go.
Very positive discussions is different language, and
different language from Trump in this context should be read as a
signal, not a slip. Whether it reflects substantive
movement in the private track, he confirmed on Thursday, the
one only he and a handful of others know about, or whether it
is the public surface of a process that remains stalled on
the nuclear sequencing question cannot be determined from
outside The West Wing. But the language has shifted
toward the positive at exactly the moment the US is asserting
navigational authority in the Strait and the written exchange
is flowing in both directions. Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister
Khazam Gurab Abadi said on Saturday that the ball is in
America's court to choose the path of diplomacy or
confrontation. That formulation, diplomacy or
confrontation. America's choice is Iran framing
itself as the reactive party in the diplomatic exchange.
Iran has submitted its 14 point proposal.
Iran is now reviewing AUS written response to it.
From Tehran's perspective, Washington is the one that must
decide what direction the negotiations take.
Iran is waiting. America is choosing.
Whether Iran's characterization of the dynamic is accurate
depends entirely on what the US written response says.
If it moved the American position toward Iran's framing,
acknowledging nuclear talks as a later stage consistent with
Iran's two stage structure, then Tehran's ball in America's court
formulation might reflect A genuine convergence.
If the US response simply restated the position that
nuclear commitments must precede any war ending arrangement, then
the ball is not in America's court in any meaningful sense.
It is back at the same impasse. American petrol prices, at $4.45
per gallon, are the most visible daily domestic measure of what
the Iran war is costing ordinary Americans.
That is a rise of nearly 50% since February 28th, when the
pre war average was approximately $3.01 per gallon.
A 50% increase in petrol prices sustained over 66 days is not a
temporary supply disruption that consumers absorb and forget.
It is a compounding cost embedded into every fill up,
every delivery fee, every airline ticket, every heating
bill, every food price that reflects the cost of
transporting goods. It accumulates as a background
inflation pressure on every economic decision, every
American household makes. Trump acknowledged this directly
on April 30th when he told the public to expect higher prices
for a while and said the trade off is Iran without a nuclear
weapon. That framing asks the American
consumer to accept 50% higher petrol prices as the price of a
strategic foreign policy objective.
The trade off was politically acceptable in the early weeks of
the war when the conflict appeared to be moving quickly.
It becomes progressively harder to sustain as the while extends
into a third month with no defined endpoint.
The guided transit announcement is, among its other functions, a
domestic political gesture. If American warships are in a
Strait of Hormuz today enabling commercial shipping to transit,
and if that transit reduces the supply disruption that has been
elevating oil prices, then Trump can point to a visible and
immediate consequence of the military action lower petrol
prices beginning as evidence that the strategy is producing
results. Whether the guided transit
actually begins to reduce prices depends on three simultaneous
conditions. Commercial vessels willing to
transit under U.S. military guidance, the IRGC choosing not
to attack those vessels and risk a direct engagement with the US
Navy, and the mines in the Strait having been sufficiently
cleared to make transit commercially insurable at
reasonable rates. All three are open questions as
of Monday morning, and the tanker hit by unknown
projectiles within hours of the announcement.
Confirmation is a signal about Condition 2.
Iran's parliament is preparing to pass a law establishing a
formal domestic legal regime for Strait of Hormuz Transit.
The law, as reported by Iranian state broadcaster Press TV,
would place formal legislative restrictions on which vessels
are permitted to pass through the Strait and under what
conditions. This is a significant
institutional development that parallels the guided Transit
announcement on the American side.
The combination of this parliamentary legislation and
the Irgc's existing operational control of the waterway creates
a dual legal and military architecture for Iran's hormones
position. Militarily, the IRGC controls
access through mine placement, gunboat presence, the seizure of
vessels, and the threat of force against non compliant ships.
Legally, the new parliamentary law would give the selective
opening or continued restriction of the straight the domestic
legal character of a sovereign maritime regulatory regime
rather than the character of an armed blockade imposed by a
state engaged in a military conflict.
Whether International Maritime law, the UN Convention on the
Law of the Sea, or any relevant treaty framework recognizes that
Iranian domestic legal regime is a separate and unresolved
question. International law does not, in
general permit unilateral national restriction of transit
passage through recognized international straits.
But having a parliamentary law on the books creates a different
political presentation for Iran internationally, particularly
with non Western audiences who are sympathetic to framing
Iranian Hormuz control as sovereignty rather than as
belligerence. China, Russia, and most of the
global S have been more receptive to that sovereignty
framing than Western governments throughout the war.
The parliamentary law is Iran building the domestic and
international legal infrastructure of the Hormuz
sovereignty argument. It has been advancing since the
war's first day, moving it from a military position to a
legislative 1. Lebanon deteriorated further on
Sunday. The Israeli military issued
evacuation warnings to residents of 11 villages in southern
Lebanon on Sunday before conducting strikes on
approximately 70 military structures and 50 Hezbollah
infrastructure sites. Lebanese state media reported an
Israeli strike on a mosque in the village of Samia that killed
three people. Hezbollah said it attacked
Israeli troops and vehicles near the town of Kantara.
The Lebanese death toll since March 2nd has now exceeded 2600
people. Israel is conducting its most
intensive Lebanese operation since the ceasefire extension
was announced. Iran has consistently cited
continued Israeli operations in Lebanon as a reason nuclear
negotiations cannot proceed. The Lebanon Front is now
producing the kind of daily casualties and civilian
evacuations that make Iran's 30 day timeline argument internally
persuasive, even if it is externally inconvenient for the
diplomatic process. Iran published civilian damage
figures from the war on Sunday. The head of Iran's Basage
Construction Organization, Brigadier General Mohammad
Zarai, said approximately 60,500 housing units were damaged
across Tehran, Isfahan and calm during the US Israeli strikes.
46,000 in Tehran alone, 12,300 in Isfahan and 2200 in calm.
More than 12,000 of those units have been repaired by volunteer
groups as of Sunday. Those figures are the most
specific quantification of war damage the Iranian government
has provided, and they are being released on the same weekend
that Iran is reviewing AUS counter proposal and the United
States is announcing A hormones guided transit.
The timing is deliberate. Iran is placing the human and
material cost of the war on the public record at the precise
moment when the diplomatic process is producing its most
active written proposal. Exchange 60,500 damaged homes in
three Iranian cities is the civilian dimension of the
conflict that Iran's government wants Washington, Europe and the
world to hold in mind. While the nuclear and Hormuz
sequencing questions are being worked through written proposals
and Pakistani intermediaries at the 66th day of Operation Epic
Fury, more is happening simultaneously than at any point
in the conflict since the opening night of strikes.
American warships are moving through the Strait of Hormuz
while Iran's parliament passes a law to govern who transits it.
A tanker has been hit. Written proposals are flowing in
both directions through Pakistan.
Trump says the discussions are very positive.
Iran says the ball is in America's court. 15,000 US
service members are in the operational zone.
Petrol is 445. Lebanon is being evacuated
village by village under a ceasefire that Israel and
Hezbollah both continue to violate daily.
And somewhere in the private track that Trump confirmed on
Thursday, the one only he and a handful of others understand,
the actual shape of this war's end is being formed in
communications and negotiations that the public record has not
yet captured and may not capture until the moment they produce an
announcement. If this podcast is helping you
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This has been episode 66 of Epic Fury, the US Iran war podcast.
American warships are in the Strait of Hormuz today.
Iran says ceasefire violation tanker hit US responded to
Iran's 14 point proposal through Pakistan.
Trump very positive discussions. Iran ball in America's court
15,000. US service members petrol at
4:45. Parliament passing a Hormuz law.
Lebanon evacuating 11 villages. The 66th day of a war that shows
within the same 24 hours every sign of moving toward resolution
and every sign of escalating further simultaneously from the
same governments in the same Strait of Hormuz.
We will be back very soon.