The Situation Room - May 6th

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I’m Atlas, and welcome to The Situation Room! We cover the most high impact geopolitical developments every Wednesday!

Today’s topics:

• Rubio: Operation Fury Is Over

• Armenia Holds Summit With The E.U.

• Japan & Philippines Deepen Defense Ties Amid Tensions With China

Rubio: Operation Fury Is Over

_{By: Atlas}

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters at the White House Tuesday that the United States' opening military campaign against Iran, Operation Epic Fury, has concluded and that the current U.S. posture in the Strait of Hormuz is a separate, defensive operation aimed at restoring freedom of navigation rather than reigniting the war.

The briefing — Rubio's first as fill-in spokesman while press secretary Karoline Leavitt is on maternity leave — came one day after the heaviest single day of fire since the April 8 ceasefire took hold, with Iranian missile and drone strikes on the United Arab Emirates, six Iranian fast boats sunk by U.S. helicopters, and the first U.S.-flagged commercial vessel transit out of the Persian Gulf under what the administration is calling Project Freedom.

"Operation Epic Fury has concluded. We've completed our objectives in that operation," Rubio said. "This is a defensive operation. And what that means is very simple: There's no shooting unless we're shot at first. We are only responding if attacked first."

The framing is consequential. The administration has used the same logic to argue that it is no longer required to seek congressional authorization for ongoing military activity in the Gulf, since the operation that triggered the 60-day War Powers Act clock — which expired Friday — is, in its account, formally over. President Trump notified Congress to that effect last week. Democrats and outside legal scholars have rejected the theory.

The defensive framework

Rubio walked through the structure of Project Freedom in detail. The U.S. is not formally escorting commercial vessels through the strait. Instead, three Navy destroyers — the USS Truxtun, USS Mason, and USS Rafael Peralta — are positioned inside the Persian Gulf west of the strait, providing what officials described as a multi-layered defensive shield of ships, aircraft, and air-defense systems for any commercial vessel choosing to transit. U.S. Central Command has committed more than 100 land- and sea-based aircraft, multi-domain unmanned platforms, and 15,000 service members to the operation.

Rubio said the U.S. has been in contact "with a bunch" of shipping liners about helping them move out of the strait, and that hundreds of vessels were lining up to transit. Two U.S.-flagged commercial ships have already exited under U.S. military protection. The first, Maersk's Alliance Fairfax, made the run Monday. The CS Anthem, a chemical tanker, became the second on Tuesday.

The Iranian regime, Rubio said, "cannot be allowed to dictate who uses this vital waterway." He called Iran's actions in the strait — the laying of mines, the firing on civilian vessels, the imposition of a $1-per-barrel transit toll — a "criminal act" with no basis in international law. He cited 10 civilian sailor deaths to date as a result of the conflict in the waterway. "They're isolated, they're starving, they're vulnerable, and at least 10 sailors have died as a result, civilian sailors," he said, without providing further detail.

Rubio added that the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, in place since April 13, is now costing Tehran roughly $500 million a day in lost oil revenue. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a separate interview Sunday that Iran had collected less than $1.3 million in transit tolls and that Iranian oil storage was filling up to the point where wells might soon have to be shut in.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, briefing reporters at the Pentagon shortly before Rubio's appearance, framed the operation in similar terms. "Project Freedom is defensive in nature, focused in scope and temporary in duration," he said. He described the U.S. presence in the strait as a "red, white and blue dome" being gifted to global commerce. The ceasefire, Hegseth said, "is not over."

The ceasefire question

Whether the ceasefire actually still holds is increasingly a question of definition rather than fact. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine told reporters Tuesday that Iran has attacked U.S. forces more than 10 times since the truce began on April 8, has fired on nine commercial vessels, and has seized two container ships. None of those incidents, he said, has crossed the threshold for restarting major combat operations. "What I'll say is it's low harassing fire right now," Caine said. "It feels like Iran is grasping at straws. The threshold of restarting is a political decision above my pay grade."

Rubio's framing went further. He told reporters that the administration has shifted from what he called Operation Epic Fury to what one analyst, summarizing his remarks, described as "Economic Fury" — a campaign of pressure designed to make the cost of Iran's strait posture untenable rather than to engineer regime change through direct military action. "Iran has a high pain threshold," Rubio said, "but not an unlimited pain threshold."

Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office Tuesday, declined to specify what action by Iran would count as a ceasefire violation. "You'll find out, because I'll let you know," he said. "They know what to do, and they know what not to do, more importantly, actually." He said Iran's military had been reduced to firing "peashooters" and that Tehran "should wave the white flag of surrender" but was too proud to do so. "If this were a fight, they'd stop it," Trump said.

Iranian officials publicly disputed both the U.S. account of Monday's engagements and the framing of the broader situation. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned on X that both Washington and Abu Dhabi "should be wary of being dragged back into quagmire." A spokesperson for Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters denied that Iranian forces had carried out missile or drone operations against the UAE in recent days, saying any actions were "exclusively" directed at the United States. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf called the U.S. operation a violation of the ceasefire and said the situation had become "intolerable."

The diplomatic track

Rubio said U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are continuing to explore a diplomatic path with Iran, but he made clear that any agreement would have to address not only Iran's enrichment activities but also the disposition of nuclear material the administration believes Iran has buried at undisclosed locations.

"The president's been clear that part of the negotiation process has to be not just the enrichment, but what happens to this material that's buried deep somewhere that they still have access to if they ever wanted to dig it out," Rubio said. He declined to provide detail on what progress had been made and said the agreement would not need to be finalized in a single sitting. "This is highly complex, and highly technical, but we have to have a diplomatic solution that is very clear about the topics that they are willing to negotiate on and the extent and the concessions they are willing to make at the front end."

Iran's 14-point proposal, delivered through Pakistani mediators last weekend, calls for the U.S. to lift sanctions, end the naval blockade, withdraw forces from the region, and cease all hostilities — including Israel's continuing operations in Lebanon. Iranian officials have made clear that the plan does not address the nuclear file in its first phase, with the most contentious issues deferred to a 30-day implementation window. Trump has described the proposal as unacceptable and said Iran has "not yet paid a big enough price."

The U.N. track and the wider audience

Rubio also announced that the United States, joined by Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar, has put forward a new draft resolution at the U.N. Security Council demanding that Iran cease attacks, mining, and tolling in the strait, disclose the number and location of mines it has laid, and cooperate with their removal. The resolution also calls for the establishment of a humanitarian corridor.

A similar resolution introduced last month was vetoed by Russia and China. Rubio said the new draft had been adjusted in an effort to win broader support, particularly from Asian states, and that he hoped Beijing would relay to Tehran that Iran's strategy in the strait is producing global isolation rather than leverage. "Find me a country, not just 25 experts, but a country, that is agreeing with Iran's actions in the Strait of Hormuz," former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Mark Kimmitt said in a separate analysis. "No country, no international organisation, not the UN, has supported Iran's closure of the strait."

Rubio framed the upcoming Security Council vote as a test of the institution itself. "We're not even asking people to commit troops to the region and help blow up the Iranian boats," he said. "All we're asking them to do is to condemn it, to call on Iran to stop blowing ships, to remove these mines, and to allow humanitarian relief to come through. That's it. There's a very modest request. If you're telling me that the international community and hundreds of countries cannot rally behind that, then I don't know what the utility of the U.N. system is."

The diplomatic and military timelines are now running in parallel. Trump told reporters Tuesday the conflict could stretch another two or three weeks. Rubio said the United States has "already won" the opening war and is now waiting for Iran to "accept the reality of the situation." Iran, for its part, announced a new "Persian Gulf Strait Authority" Tuesday — a formalization of the maritime regime Tehran has been imposing since February. The two sides are no longer fighting about whether the strait is open. They are fighting about whose framework defines what an open strait looks like.

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