And good evening. Thanks for joining us, topping our CNN global war coverage from our newsroom

with thousands more ground forces heading to the Gulf.

President Trump signals the fighting could soon be over.

Quoting from his social media post from late today, we are getting very close to meeting our

objectives as we

consider winding down our great military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the terrorist

regime of Iran. The Hormuz Strait, he adds, will have to be guarded and policed as necessary

by other nations who use it. The United States does not. He finishes by saying, if asked, we will help these countries

in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn't be necessary once Iran's threat is eradicated. Importantly,

it will be an easy military operation for them. In short, getting out and leaving American allies

defend for themselves. As for the declaring victory part, he did that as well today.

Oh, I think we've won. We've knocked out their Navy, their Air Force. We've knocked out their

anti-aircraft. We've knocked out everything. We're roaming free. From a military standpoint,

all they're doing is clogging up the straight. but from a military standpoint, they're finished.

Okay, but a mona sources in the intelligence community and the administration tell us that

unclogging the street is a problem without a clear solution, one that a recent intelligence

assessment determined could drag on for as long as six months. Now, a Pentagon spokesman

dismissed that notion,

though, telling CNN, quote, one assessment does not mean the assessment is plausible and it's

dangerous for the media to cherry pick the worst case scenario to scare the American people.

Still, it is hard to find anyone with any experience of the region saying that safeguarding the

straight will be, as the president just put it, an easy military operation or that it will open itself, which he also said today.

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