Roland Oliphant

Good morning.

I mean, I think the immediate probable cause of this U-turn is that it was coming very close to restarting a full-scale shooting war.

So he started this Project Freedom, this kind of escort mission to get all those trapped tankers and cargo ships and what have you out of the Persian Gulf just on Monday.

And it only really got, I think it only got one or two ships out, but the cost was a sudden escalation in Iranian strikes on,

on shipping and vessels and American retaliation.

And by kind of yesterday, we're all saying kind of, you know, we are one step away from a full resumption of hostilities.

So my guess would be the reason Trump said, okay, let's pause this now, is because he just doesn't want to go back to war.

Yes, no, I mean, you're not wrong at all.

I mean, both of those men were briefing very carefully and

in very coordinated language that this operation is going to continue, that it's separate to the war fighting that was going on before, that it's a defence reparation.

They used the same kind of terminology.

They both talked about a bubble.

So it was kind of they were going to put warships around the strait that could create a safe area for shipping to pass through.

And their kind of signalling was entirely that,

you know, this is going to go on and we're not going to back off from this and so on.

So Trump's U-turn, very sudden.

I imagine, though, that it did come down to that question because I think yesterday, when we were analysing this and talking about this in the paper, we realised that if America is going to carry on down that course...

It did look like an inevitable kind of ratchet up to a full scale war because they were going to have to retaliate when the Iranians attack these ships.

Well, funnily enough, just as I was waiting to join the show, I was just checking the wires and they're just flashing red.

This story that the White House believes it's getting close to an agreement with Iran on a one-page memorandum of understanding to end the war.