Rubio: Operation Epic Fury Is Over, US Shifts to Defense

Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared Wednesday that Operation Epic Fury — the roughly two-month U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran launched February 28 — is over, and that American forces have shifted to a purely defensive stance as diplomatic efforts toward a nuclear deal gain momentum.

“There’s no shooting unless we’re shot at first,” Rubio told reporters, marking the clearest public signal yet that active offensive operations have ceased. The announcement came on the same day President Trump paused the Hormuz escort operation known as Project Freedom, citing “Great Progress” in negotiations with Tehran.

What Changed

Operation Epic Fury ran from late February through early May, encompassing strikes on Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure carried out jointly by U.S. and Israeli forces. Rubio’s statement Wednesday was the first time a senior American official explicitly declared the campaign concluded rather than merely paused.

The shift to a defensive posture means U.S. naval and air assets in the region will no longer initiate strikes on Iranian targets. Forces remain forward-deployed, but rules of engagement have been tightened to response-only.

At the same time, Trump announced he was suspending Project Freedom — the controversial Hormuz escort program under which U.S. warships had been accompanying commercial tankers through the strait under fire from Iranian forces. The president credited Pakistan with brokering the pause, saying Islamabad had directly requested the suspension as part of its mediation role. The Washington Post reported Pakistan has emerged as a key back-channel intermediary between Washington and Tehran in recent weeks.

Brent crude fell 8.81 percent to $100.19 a barrel on Wednesday, its steepest single-day drop in months, as markets priced in reduced risk of a prolonged Hormuz closure.

The Unresolved Core: Enrichment

Despite the diplomatic momentum, the fundamental disagreement between Washington and Tehran over uranium enrichment remains unresolved.

Iran’s UN mission stated on May 2 that Tehran would accept no limits on enrichment under IAEA supervision, a position that directly contradicts the U.S. demand for zero enrichment as a precondition to any deal. Rubio acknowledged the issue in his remarks Wednesday, saying Iran’s nuclear material “has to be addressed” in any subsequent negotiations, but stopped short of reiterating the zero-enrichment demand publicly.

The gap is not trivial. U.S. officials have insisted for months that any agreement must preclude Iran from maintaining a domestic enrichment capability, arguing that even low-level enrichment provides a breakout pathway. Iran’s position — that it has the right to a full civil nuclear cycle under international monitoring — has been consistent since the collapse of the 2015 JCPOA.

Regional Diplomacy Intensifies

The announcement coincided with a flurry of diplomatic activity. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Beijing on Wednesday, with Al Jazeera reporting that China pressed Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz ahead of a planned Trump-Xi summit scheduled for May 14–15. Beijing has significant economic interest in Hormuz transit; roughly 20 percent of global oil shipments pass through the strait, including large volumes bound for Chinese ports.

The Beijing meeting signals that China, long reluctant to be seen as taking sides, is now actively using its relationship with Tehran as a diplomatic asset ahead of the Trump-Xi meeting — and that Washington may be counting on that leverage.

Pakistan’s mediating role adds another dimension. Islamabad has maintained diplomatic relations with both Washington and Tehran and has historically positioned itself as a bridge between the two. Trump’s public credit to Pakistan was notable: it elevates Islamabad’s profile in a negotiation that has so far been dominated by Gulf Arab states and China.

Background: Two Months of Strikes

Operation Epic Fury began February 28 following the collapse of earlier back-channel talks and a series of Iranian provocations in the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. and Israeli forces struck Iranian nuclear facilities, air defense networks, and ballistic missile storage sites in a coordinated campaign that drew comparisons — in scope if not duration — to the 1991 Gulf War air campaign.

The Hormuz transit mission Project Freedom brought its own escalation, with the USS Truxtun and USS Mason conducting transits of the strait under direct Iranian fire earlier this week. Iran also struck a UAE refinery facility in Fujairah — the first Iranian strike on Emirati soil since the campaign began — underscoring how close the conflict came to a broader regional war before Wednesday’s announcements.

Trump sent Congress a formal War Powers notification on May 3, declaring that hostilities had been terminated — a move that set the legal stage for the ceasefire posture Rubio confirmed Wednesday.

What Comes Next

The diplomatic calendar is now compressed. A Trump-Xi summit is set for May 14–15, and any deal framework — or breakdown — is likely to come into sharper focus around that meeting. Iran’s Supreme Leader has not publicly endorsed the current diplomatic track, and hardline factions within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have historically moved to undermine negotiations they view as concessionary.

Rubio’s framing — “defensive posture” rather than ceasefire — leaves room for the U.S. to resume offensive operations if Iran conducts new strikes or accelerates its nuclear program. Whether that ambiguity is deliberate coercive signaling or a reflection of genuine uncertainty in Washington is not yet clear.

Oil markets, for their part, are betting on a deal. Whether that bet holds depends on whether the enrichment impasse has a solution neither side has yet announced.