Jeremy Scahill

It was one factor here as to why Trump didn't go ahead with sort of keeping that in place.

But the other part of it was that

as U.S.

warships started to move further past the red lines that the Iranians had said were kind of clearly Iranian territory, Iran considered, first of all, they consider the military blockade itself an act of war.

And secondly, when U.S.

ships come into clearly defined Iranian territory, they view any counteractions that they take against them as defensive.

It's unclear who fired first or what, you know,

what the actual facts are right now.

Both Iran and the United States are claiming the other side fired first.

But what is clear is that there was an exchange of fire.

The Iranians claim they actually hit some U.S.

ships.

The United States and CENTCOM are denying that.

But what happened is that Trump authorized a fairly heavy but very short-term bombing of an island off of Iran's coastal territory.

They also struck in the city of Manab, which, as you'll recall, was the place where

And the opening hours of the February 28th bombing that started this war, the U.S.

with cruise missiles hit a girls' school, killing 165 people, most of them young girls.

And the backdrop of all of this is that there has been this exchange of amendments to a 14-point plan.

proposal for what is being called the Memorandum of Understanding.

It's true that this exists.