Trump calls Iran conflict a "skirmish"

CBS News Senior Foreign Correspondent Holly Williams is following the latest from Tel Aviv. President Trump announced he was pausing the US military operation to reopen the Strait of Hormuz less than two days after it began to try to reach a, quote, "complete and final agreement with Iran." Trump claimed today that the Iranian regime wants to negotiate and that things are going smoothly, but we have heard that type of language from the president on many occasions since this conflict began back in February. In a social-media post today, President Trump also threatened Iran with more attacks if it doesn't agree to a deal, saying they'd be at a much higher level and intensity. According to a report from Axios, the White House believes it's getting close to an agreement with Iran in the form of a one-page memorandum, with terms including a moratorium on Iran's nuclear enrichment, the lifting of US sanctions and both sides ending restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz. One Iranian official dismissed the report as an American wish list. Another said the US proposal was being considered. Back to you.

Holly Williams, thank you. Samuel Helfont joins me now. He's an associate professor of strategy and policy at the Naval War College. Thank you for being here. What do you make of President Trump ending Project Freedom after one day? Thanks for having me. First, I should say I'm speaking here on a personal capacity, not on behalf of the Naval War College. But I guess we're going to have to wait and see. If there really is a chance for negotiations and a chance to make this work, then that would be a good thing. It doesn't seem like many ships were getting through the Strait anyway, and it was putting US ships in danger for not much return. So that might have also contributed to the decision to end it.

How effective has the US blockade of Iranian ports been? Well, any kind of naval blockade is going to take a long time to be effective. You're talking about months, maybe sometimes even up to years. And so the question is for the Iranians looking forward is, do they see that the Americans have the will to keep this in place? And then what, exactly, do the Americans want to achieve through this naval blockade? which is still an open question. There are several different objectives that are being discussed.

President Trump told PBS, "I think it's got a very good chance of ending, and if it doesn't end, we have to go back to bombing the hell out of them." Reading the tea leaves, is it too hard to know whether a deal is imminent? It's really hard to know, and if the deal was coming, what that deal entails will be a big question, too. Are we just talking about opening the Strait of Hormuz, or are we talking about Iran giving up its nuclear program now? And then an even trickier issue is how can the US ensure that the Iranians just don't rebuild in the next 5 to 10 years.

Samuel Helfont, thank you.