Iran’s defeat is likely just weeks, not months, away, says Rubio.
By World Israel News Staff
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that Washington is on pace to achieve its main military objectives against Iran within weeks, presenting the campaign as a focused effort to cripple Tehran’s ability to threaten the region rather than the start of a long ground war.
In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Rubio said that the United States had already largely achieved the destruction of Iran’s air force and navy and was making major progress against missile launchers and weapons-production infrastructure.
“This Iran that you’re seeing now, this is Iran at its weakest point. Imagine them two years from now if they had thousands of more missiles to – thousands of more missile launchers and factories to make even more. That was an unacceptable risk, it needed to be addressed, and President Trump is addressing it,” Rubio said.
Rubio described the campaign’s core goals as dismantling Iran’s air and naval power, sharply reducing its missile-launch capability, and destroying factories used to build missiles and drones.
He said those aims were being met “on or ahead of schedule” and could be completed in “a matter of weeks,” not months, echoing recent comments he made that the United States could accomplish its objectives without deploying ground troops.
Rubio also warned that the United States would not allow Iran to impose lasting control over the Strait of Hormuz, after Tehran threatened to maintain a tolling system and continued to disrupt shipping in the waterway.
He said President Donald Trump had options available and emphasized that Washington was determined to prevent Iran from turning the strait into a permanent lever of coercion. Separate reporting from The Wall Street Journal said Rubio has framed reopening the strait as something that will happen “one way or another.”
The Secretary of State slammed Iranian support for terrorist proxy groups, and warned that the regime is “insane” and cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons.
“Every single terrorist group in this region has a link to the Iranian regime. Every single one: the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Shia militias that are attacking everyone out of Iraq.”
“These people are lunatics. They are insane. They are religious zealots who can never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon because they have an apocalyptic vision of the future.”