US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday that the end of the war in Iran is near, but will not come “today or tomorrow".
Rubio blasted the Iranian regime, saying, “This is a regime that is led by radical Shia clerics, by people who believe that it is their calling. I know this sounds fantastical, but it's absolutely true. This is a regime led by people who believe that it is their calling and their purpose in life to usher in the end of the world."
“These people want nuclear weapons. Why do we know that? Because they are assembling all the things you need for nuclear weapons. They're assembling long-range rockets that can eventually reach the United States, can already range Europe. We saw them demonstrate two of them last week, despite denying that they had them. They enriched uranium to 60%…from 60 to 90%, which is what you need for a bomb, takes 12 to 14 days. They bragged about still having that. They demand the right to enrich, which is how you get from 60 to 90%. They're the leading sponsor of terrorism, not in the region, in the world."
“They can never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, which is what President Trump made very clear from the very first day of his presidency. In fact, from the very first day of his candidacy. When he came down that escalator in 2015, he talked about this," continued Rubio, who noted that Trump has “actually been talking about the threat of Iran before he was even a political candidate. And as president, he was not going to allow Iran to pose a threat to Americans now or future generations of Americans. So we had to act with very clear purpose."
“We are going to destroy their Air Force. We have largely done that. We were going to destroy their Navy, which we have largely achieved that. We were going to destroy a significant percentage of their missile launchers. We are well on our way to achieving that. And we were going to wipe out their defense industrial base, meaning the factories that make the drones and the missiles. We are on our way to doing that," he said.
Rubio further said, “We are well on our way. We are on or ahead of schedule on each of those four objectives. And we can see the finish line. It's not today. It's not tomorrow, but it is coming. We are going to get to the point where our military will have achieved all of its objectives in this mission."
On the possibility of talks with Iran, the Secretary of State said, “We can't ignore that for 47 years they've avoided and rejected any effort to negotiate. That doesn't mean we're going to stop trying."
He stressed, “President Trump always, always would rather have negotiations than war. And he will always, we gave them 60 days early last year. We gave them additional time to negotiate after Midnight Hammer again earlier this year. But each and every time those things have proved fruitless. But we're going to keep trying. There are messages being exchanged. There are talks going on. There is the potential for direct meeting at some point. We're always going to be open for that. But President Trump is not going to allow fake negotiations to be used as a delay tactic to buy more time to buy themselves space."