The United Arab Emirates said it came under attack for the first time since the early April ceasefire, and a British military monitor said two cargo vessels were ablaze off the UAE. There had been warning signs around the U.S. military-aided effort to guide ships through the strait, as Iran called it a violation of the fragile, three-week ceasefire.

Few ships had appeared to take advantage of “Project Freedom,” announced Sunday by President Donald Trump, though the U.S. said two U.S.-flagged merchant ships safely transited with its help.

Caution, even skepticism, is growing among shippers, and markets, over the lack of details from Washington. Who would risk their crew and cargo to possible Iranian fire?

Here’s what to know.

U.S. appears to be going it alone

Iran’s grip on the crucial waterway has left hundreds of commercial ships and tens of thousands of sailors stuck since the war broke out over two months ago. The U.S. military says 87 countries are represented among the vessels.

Backed up in the strait are weeks’ worth of supplies of globally needed oil, gas, fertilizer and other goods. This has been Iran’s strategic advantage in the war, one that has pinched economies and dimmed the outlook for the Republican president’s party in this year’s midterm U.S. elections.

Oil prices rose Monday as uncertainty continued around the strait and the U.S. effort, which Trump has described as a humanitarian one to help countries that have been “neutral and innocent” in the war.

While countries in Europe and elsewhere have fretted over the strait and have been urged by Trump to help solve the issue, it was not immediately clear whether any other nation was involved Monday.

The U.S. military, which has been blockading Iranian ports for weeks, said the initiative involves guided-missile destroyers, more than 100 aircraft and 15,000 service members but did not say how they are deployed.

Trump warned that interference in the effort “will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully.”

The U.S. military on Monday said it sank six small Iranian boats that were targeting civilian vessels, and said Iran launched missiles and drones at ships the U.S. was protecting.

Adm. Brad Cooper, who heads U.S. Central Command, said Iran initiated the “aggressive behavior.” He declined to say whether the ceasefire was over.

Iran calls the effort part of Trump’s ‘delirium’

Iran effectively closed the strait by attacking some ships over the past two months, and told others not affiliated with the U.S. or Israel that they could pass if they paid a toll.

Iran’s military command on Monday said ships still must coordinate with Tehran to transit the strait and warned that “any foreign military force — especially the aggressive U.S. military — that intends to approach or enter the Strait of Hormuz will be targeted,” the state broadcaster reported.

Iranian news agencies claimed that Iran struck a U.S. vessel southeast of the strait, accusing it of violating “maritime security and navigation norms.” The U.S. military denied it.

Concerns remain about Iranian mines in the waterway. Cooper said the U.S. military had cleared a pathway in the strait, and set up a “defensive umbrella” that includes helicopters and fighter planes to protect freighters leaving it.

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency has called Trump’s plan to reopen the strait part of his “delirium.”

Wary shippers say security situation is unchanged

The threat level around the strait remains critical, according to the U.S.-led Joint Maritime Information Center, even as it issued an advisory on the new U.S. effort.

The head of security for the Baltic and International Maritime Council, a leading shipping trade group, said no formal guidance or details about the effort had been issued to the industry.

Without Iran’s consent for safe transit, “it is currently not clear whether the Iranian threat to ships can be degraded or suppressed,” Jakob Larsen, BIMCO’s chief safety and security officer said in a statement.

Larsen questioned whether the U.S. effort is sustainable in the long run or is envisioned as a limited operation, and said there is a “risk of hostilities breaking out again” if it goes ahead.

“There’s not much clarity at this point,” United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told journalists.

The Joint Maritime Information Center has advised ships to cross the strait in Oman’s waters, saying the U.S. has set up an “enhanced security area.” It warned that passing close to usual routes “should be considered extremely hazardous due to the presence of mines that have not been fully surveyed and mitigated.”

The center urged mariners to coordinate closely with Omani authorities “due to anticipated high traffic volume” — a forecast that on Monday seemed unlikely to play out.

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In a phone interview with The Hill, Trump said Wright was “totally wrong” in suggesting gas prices might not fall below $3 per gallon until next year.

Instead, Trump tied any meaningful drop in prices to the ongoing conflict involving Iran. “As soon as this ends,” he said, indicating he expects prices to ease once tensions subside.

Wright, speaking on CNN a day earlier, struck a more cautious tone. He said it’s possible prices could dip later this year, but acknowledged it may take until 2027 depending on how the situation develops, particularly with disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz — a key global shipping route for oil.

“Prices have likely peaked and should start to come down,” Wright said, adding that a resolution to the conflict would help bring broader energy costs down.

His outlook differs from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said last week that gas prices could return to the $3 range as early as this summer.

Global oil markets have been on edge amid escalating tensions tied to Iran and shipping restrictions through the Strait of Hormuz. In the U.S., gas prices have climbed past $4 per gallon — levels not seen since the early months following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. AAA reported the national average at $4 on Monday.

Oil prices also jumped after the U.S. seized an Iranian vessel near the Strait over the weekend. Brent crude rose to about $94 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate hovered near $88.

At the same time, the U.S. has been enforcing a blockade targeting Iranian ports, further tightening supply. According to Reuters, Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Asim Munir, raised concerns about the blockade during discussions with Trump, calling it a barrier to negotiations. Trump, however, disputed that account.

“He didn’t recommend anything on the blockade,” Trump said. “It’s very strong. They’re losing about $500 million a day. We control it — they don’t.”

Vice President JD Vance is expected to head a U.S. delegation to Islamabad for potential talks involving Pakistani and Iranian officials. Still, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that no final decision has been made on whether negotiations with the U.S. will move forward.

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Democrats voiced concern that the United States is becoming further entrenched in another lengthy conflict in the Middle East. They promised to keep raising the issue through more war powers votes in the coming weeks.

The 213-214 vote came one day after a similar effort failed in the Senate. The U.S. and Israel struck Iran on Feb. 28, and a fragile ceasefire is now in its second week.

Democrats overwhelmingly supported the attempt to rein in Trump’s use of military force.

“We’re standing at the edge of a cliff and Congress must act before the president pushes off,” said New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. “Every day we delay, we inch closer to a conflict with no exit ramp.”

Republicans tried to cast the effort as hypocritical.

Florida Rep. Brian Mast, the committee chairman, said Congress never voted on a war powers resolution when the U.S. attacked Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen in 2024 while Democrat Joe Biden was president.

“When Joe Biden was responding to merchant marine vessels being attacked, it was OK. No war power needed. It went on for about a year,” Mast said. “President Trump responds — war power, war power, war power. … That’s the hypocrisy.”

Under the War Powers Act of 1973, Congress must declare war or authorize use of force within 60 days — a deadline in the Iran war that will arrive at the end of April. The law provides for a potential 30-day extension, but lawmakers have made clear that they want the Republican administration to soon lay out a plan for the war’s end.

While the House vote failed, it gave Democrats an opportunity to highlight some of the most negative effects of the war: the billions of dollars spent, the death of at least 13 service members, the soaring gas prices and fissures with long-standing allies who do not support Trump’s actions.

“Gas prices at home are up to $7 in my home state, and families are hurting,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. “Another 10,000 U.S. troops are being sent in to join 50,000 already stationed in the Middle East with absolutely no strategy, no plan and no exit.”

Republicans defended Trump as taking decisive action against an Iranian government that has long terrorized the Middle East and its own people.

“President Donald Trump has sent a message that those who threaten the United States and our partners will be ultimately held accountable,” said Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C.

In Thursday’s vote, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky was the only Republican to cross party lines and vote for removing U.S. forces from the war. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine was the only Democrat to vote against the measure.

The first House vote to curb Trump’s miliary action with Iran failed in early March, 212-219.

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A U.S. missile strike. An initial statement emphasizing precision. Then, later, reports that civilians — including many children — were among the dead. In Afghanistan, through the early and mid-2000s, these reports came so often they formed a grim pattern. Each incident is explained as an anomaly, but over time, the pattern itself became the story.

Now similar reports are emerging from Iran. A new investigation alleges that a Feb. 28 strike by the U.S. hit an elementary school and sports hall in the southern city of Lamerd, with children once again among the dead. U.S. Central Command has since denied carrying out any strike in or near Lamerd that day, calling the reports false.

Independent verification is difficult because Iran shut down its internet, but Americans should nevertheless be concerned, especially after at least 175 people including many children were reported killed in a U.S. strike on a different school in Minab that same day. The cycle is familiar, with allegations of civilian harm followed by official denials, and no independent access to quickly verify the facts.

I was a civilian protection advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the first Trump administration. I worked inside the Pentagon with military professionals who took the issue of civilian harm seriously. They saw avoiding civilian casualties as a matter of military discipline and their own humanity. I know what it looks like when civilian protection works. This isn’t it.

Over more than two decades of armed conflict, U.S. efforts to reduce civilian harm have moved in fits and starts, with periods of progress followed by setbacks and recurring mass casualty events. Pressure often came from civil society, public outrage and negative headlines, but also from within the armed forces. Senior commanders came to see civilian casualties not just as “collateral damage,” but also as operationally counterproductive.

That recognition led to real changes including tighter rules, better intelligence practices and eventually the creation of systems within the Pentagon meant to track, investigate and learn lessons to reduce harm. By the time U.S. troops were withdrawing from Kabul in 2021, those lessons were just beginning to be institutionalized across the armed forces.

What is happening now is undoing that progress. Safeguards built over years are being torn down, and it is unclear whether senior military leaders are willing to push back.

One major incident of harm to civilians can be a mistake. But when reports come in about multiple strikes on a variety of places where families and children gather, it raises a question about whether something larger is at work. It could be failures of intelligence or targeting decisions, or that the level of risk to civilians now being accepted has risen.

There are warning signs that in this policy environment, the U.S. military will not be led to correct its course. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly dismissed what he calls “stupid rules of engagement” and emphasized making the military “more lethal.” At the same time, Hegseth has weakened or sidelined efforts designed to reduce civilian harm in war. Those signals matter because they shape what military lawyers, analysts and commanders understand to be expected of them. In short, they shape the military’s culture.

We don’t know all the facts yet about the Minab school strike or the disputed one at the sports complex in Lamerd, but we’ve seen enough to know that the attacks can’t be written off as isolated mistakes. Before and since the start of the U.S. war on Iran in February, there has been little sustained public debate and no congressional hearings about the risks of American military action in Iran, including the inevitable civilian casualties that result from using powerful explosive weapons in populated areas. During the war in Afghanistan, each deadly strike on a wedding party or family compound did more than take civilian lives. It fueled anger at the U.S. and magnified skepticism that our military was trying to minimize civilian harm in any way.

Americans are entitled to clear answers about who and what is being targeted, what its military is doing to protect Iranian civilians and how possible violations of the laws of war are being investigated. This is basic public oversight that should accompany the use of military force. When incidents are openly disputed, as in the Lamerd strike, the need for impartial and transparent investigations becomes more, not less, important. If the U.S. military was acting lawfully, it should show it. But if it wasn’t, the public deserves to know that too.

The United States has long claimed to fight according to international law and to benefit from doing so. But that means little if the rules are mocked and actions don’t match reality. Waiting to recognize these patterns of civilian harm, and to correct them, will once again cost lives.

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Thousands of Marines backed by advanced U.S. fighter jets and warships are slowly building up a presence in the Persian Gulf. It’s a sign that while America’s wars in the region may be finished, its conflict with Iran over its advancing nuclear program continues to worsen, with no solutions in sight.

The dispatch of the troop-and-aircraft-carrying USS Bataan to the Gulf, alongside stealth F-35 fighters and other warplanes, comes as America wants to focus on China and Russia.

But Washington is seeing once again that while it’s easy to get into the Middle East militarily, it’s difficult to ever get fully out — particularly as Iran now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels after the collapse of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

There is no sign that diplomacy will revive the deal soon, and Iran in recent weeks has resumed harassing and seizing ships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Some 20% of the world’s oil passes through the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the wider world.

For hard-liners in Tehran’s theocracy, the move projects power to surrounding nations as part of a wave of assaults attributed to Iran since 2019. It also serves as a warning to the U.S. and its allies that the Islamic Republic has the means to retaliate, particularly as American sanctions result in the seizure of ships carrying Iranian crude oil. Worries over another seizure likely has left a ship allegedly carrying Iranian oil stranded off Texas as no company has yet to unload it.

For the U.S., keeping the Strait of Hormuz open to shipping remains a priority to ensure global energy prices don’t spike, particularly as Russia’s war on Ukraine pressures markets. Gulf Arab nations need the waterway to get their oil to market and worry about Iran’s intentions in the wider region.

Those fears have cemented the longtime American presence in the Persian Gulf. In the two decades that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, there were at times two different American aircraft carriers patrolling the Gulf to provide fighter jets for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and later for the battle against the Islamic State group.

But slowly, the Pentagon began to wind down the naval presence, leaving a gap of months that brought gasps from Gulf Arab states and commentators worried about Iran. The USS Nimitz sailed out of the Strait of Hormuz in November 2020 as the last American carrier in the Persian Gulf. The last Marine expeditionary unit — an armada carrying Marines, aircraft and vehicles prepared for an amphibious assault — came through in November 2021.

Washington’s worries have changed since then. Russia’s war on Ukraine shifted some of the American focus back to Europe. China continues its push to control more of the South China Sea, and the U.S. Navy has responded with increased patrols.

In recent months, the U.S. military has again begun dialing up its Mideast presence. It conducted a Strait of Hormuz patrol with the top U.S., British and French naval commanders in the region on board. In late March, A-10 Thunderbolt II warplanes arrived at Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates. The Pentagon ordered F-16 fighters, as well as the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner, to the region. Stealth F-35A Lightning II fighter jets arrived last week.

Now, America will have part of a Marine expeditionary unit in the region for the first time in nearly two years. The deployment of thousands of Marines and sailors consists of both the USS Bataan and the USS Carter Hall, a landing ship.

Those vessels left Norfolk, Virginia, on July 10 on a mission the Pentagon described as being “in response to recent attempts by Iran to threaten the free flow of commerce in the Strait of Hormuz and its surrounding waters.” The Bataan passed through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea last week on its way to the Mideast.

While the U.S. military hasn’t discussed precisely what it will be doing with the increased presence in the region, the movements have gotten Iran’s attention. In recent days, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian called his counterparts in both Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to say that “we can have peace, stability and progress in the region without the presence of foreigners.”

Iran’s army chief, Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi, said the U.S. deployment would bring only “insecurity and damage” to the region.

“For years, Americans have been in and out of the region with pipe dreams, but the security of the region will only endure with the participation of the regional nations,” Mousavi said, according to Iranian state television.

Iran also made a point to again show off its Abu Mahdi cruise missile, first unveiled in 2020, which could be used to targets ships at sea up to 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) away. The missile is named after Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a veteran Iraqi militant who was killed in a 2020 U.S. drone strike in Baghdad alongside Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

All that raises the risk of conflict, though previous recent buildups of U.S. forces in the region haven’t resulted in open warfare. The two sides have been in combat in the past, however. In 1988, America attacked two Iranian oil rigs used for military surveillance and sank or damaged Iranian ships in the largest U.S. naval battle since World War II.

With diplomacy stalled and Iran willing to be more aggressive at sea, the U.S. appears again to be relying on military might to convince Tehran to dial back. But that leaves the rest of the issues between them beyond the seas to continue to fester.

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