Operation Epic Fury has ended: Is the Iran war over?

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Tuesday that Operation Epic Fury – the US-Israel war on Iran, which commenced on February 28 and prompted a regional conflict – has concluded because its objectives have been achieved. Washington now prefers "the path of peace", Rubio said.

On the same day, US President Donald Trump announced that the US military operation to guide stranded ships through the Strait of Hormuz, Project Freedom, which was launched the day before, had been paused.

Seeming to contradict Rubio's definitive stance on Wednesday, however, Trump wrote in a social media post that Epic Fury would "be at an end" if Iran "agrees to give what has been agreed to". Otherwise, Trump wrote, "the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before."

So is the US-Israel war on Iran over? We pick apart the swiftly changing US rhetoric.

In a media briefing at the White House on Tuesday, Rubio told reporters that Operation Epic Fury was over.

"The Operation Epic Fury is concluded. We achieved the objectives of that operation," Rubio said.

"We're not cheering for an additional situation to occur. We would prefer the path of peace. What the president would prefer is a deal," he said, referring to Pakistan's efforts to arrange direct talks between Iran and the US.

The first and so far only round of these in Islamabad last month ended without a resolution. Both sides have submitted new proposals since then.

"The on-again, off-again talks with Iran alongside Trump's abrupt about-turn on Operation Freedom to guide vessels out of the Strait of Hormuz has created unwelcome frenzy in the Gulf," Burcu Ozcelik, a senior research fellow for Middle East security at the United Kingdom-based think tank Royal United Services Institute, told Al Jazeera.

"It also reflects the highly fraught and almost frantic diplomatic backchannelling aimed to extract deep concessions from Tehran on the nuclear issue that will lock in commitments that exceed previous conditions and which will convince the US to lift the blockade on Iranian ports and unlock sanctions relief, thereby effectively ending the war."

Ozcelik explained that Iran, on the other hand, wants guarantees that this will be the end of the war rather than just a pause.

Also on Tuesday, Trump told reporters that Project Freedom had been paused "based on the request" of Pakistan and other countries and the "fact that Great Progress has been made towards a Complete and Final Agreement" with representatives of Iran.

Project Freedom appeared to signal a direct challenge to Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas supplies are shipped in peacetime. Iran's threats to attack ships in the strait have essentially blockaded it since the US-Israel war began. Then on April 13, the US imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports, adding to the standoff around the strait.

After Trump announced Project Freedom, Iran said ships trying to use the strait without permission from its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would be fired on, igniting fears of a return to war. The US president's announcement triggered a war of words between the US and Iran with claims and counterclaims about strikes continuing throughout Monday.

First, Iran's Fars News Agency claimed it had hit a US warship with drones after the vessel ignored orders to turn back from the Strait of Hormuz. The US military's Central Command denied a US ship had been struck, however, and instead claimed to have sunk at least six IRGC vessels. Iran denied that. Tehran then published a new map extending its claimed area of control over the strait into the territorial waters of the United Arab Emirates, raising fears of a new regional confrontation.

The UAE accused Iran of launching strikes on its Fujairah port, the site of an important oil pipeline, and causing a fire in an oil refinery.

On Tuesday, the US operation was stopped to allow for negotiations with Iran, according to Trump.

"We have mutually agreed that, while the [US] Blockade will remain in full force and effect, Project Freedom (The Movement of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz) will be paused for a short period of time to see whether or not the Agreement can be finalized and signed," he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Iran has not immediately responded to this.

Shahram Akbarzadeh, a professor in Middle East and Central Asian politics at Australia's Deakin University, told Al Jazeera that while it is difficult to determine exactly why Trump has paused Project Freedom, the pause comes against the backdrop of growing antiwar public opinion in the US.

"At the same time, Trump may be losing patience with the war; he says he has time to drag this out," Akbarzadeh said.

"But in reality, Trump has a short attention span and needs to secure a win – soon. Pausing Project Freedom allows diplomacy to pick up pace, bringing the US and Iran closer to a deal that Trump would label as a win."

Not exactly. Akbarzadeh said pausing Project Freedom could serve as "the beginning of the end for the war".

"We know that the Iranians are desperate for an end, so there is little chance of them resuming attacks on the US Navy if Trump sends explicit signals that diplomacy has a green light," he said.

However, Akbarzadeh added, "The problem is that we have been here before. Earlier opportunities were squandered because Israel insisted that the US could get a better deal or because Trump misread the situation and expected the military option to grant him more concessions."

It is difficult to predict this, but neither side appears to want a return to full-scale war, so both are likely to prioritise a diplomatic way out, Akbarzadeh said.

Still, "neither can afford to be seen as the loser," he added. "They feel their public image needs to be preserved for their own respective domestic audience. This complicates negotiations and reaching a deal."

Ozcelik said what happens next "will be determined by what the fractured leadership in Tehran commits to on the nuclear file".

"While it has rejected that talks involve curbs on Iran's nuclear programme, this type of posturing has aimed to assuage domestic hardline and Iranian nationalists who are rattled by the US-Israel strikes and see nuclear issues from a nationalist, sovereign rights perspective."

She predicted that the United Nations may soon issue a formal condemnation of Iran for blockading the Strait of Hormuz.

"But the real pressure, mounting by the day, is the economic one – that shutting the strait is imposing punishing costs on Iran's economic recovery prospects," she said.

"Despite rhetoric on resilience and survival, the remaining Iranian leadership is undeniably concerned about the costs of the war. The possibility of renewed military strikes against Iranian critical infrastructure and the destabilising impacts these would inevitably have might be finally forcing Tehran's hand," Ozcelik concluded.