Rubio says U.S. is ready to meet with Iran after strikes, warns closing Strait of Hormuz would be “suicidal”

Washington – The United States is ready to meet Iran after the American bombing of three Iranians nuclear sitesSaid Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday, while warning Iran that closing the Crucial Strait of Hormuz would be a “suicidal” decision for the regime.

Rubio, appearing on “Face The Nation with Margaret Brennan”, urged Iran to continue diplomacy after the realization of the United States What the Pentagon called The largest B-2 operation in the history of the United States in order to paralyze Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon. Rubio said the United States had no current plans for other attacks on Iran unless “they spoil”.

Rubio said that the American mission “was not an attack on Iran, it was not an attack on the Iranian people. It was not a change in regime change. This was designed to degrade and / or destroy three nuclear sites linked to their nuclear ambitions, and which was delivered yesterday.”

“What is happening will then depend on what Iran chooses to do next,” said Rubio. “If they choose the path of diplomacy, we are ready. We can make an agreement that is good for them, the Iranian people and good for the world. If they choose another road, there will be consequences for this.”

President Trump Continue to prefer the path of diplomacy, said Rubio, noting that the United States has prompted Iran to conclude an agreement to abandon its ambitions of nuclear weapons before the strikes.

“We are prepared at the moment, if they are now calling and say:” We want to meet, let’s talk about it “, we are ready to do so,” said Rubio.

The question of how Iran will react feared that the regime could seek to prevent ships from traveling through the Hormuz StraitA critical point of strangulation between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman which is used to transport around 20% of the oil used worldwide.

Rubio refused to say if the United States would take military measures if Iran closes the Strait, or if the United States would consider attacks on oil arrests by Iran proxy militias as direct acts by the regime: “I am not going to keep the president’s options away, it is not something that we are now talking about in terms of immediate”.

Rubio said that closure of the Strait would affect the United States, but that it would “have a lot more impact on the rest of the world”, especially on China.

“It would be a suicidal movement [Iran’s] A game, because I think the whole world would come against them if they did, “said Rubio.

The retired general Frank McKenzie, the former head of the US central command and a contributor to CBS News, said that the United States could erase the Strait if Iran made him lower underwater mines.

“The Iranians have the capacity to exploit the Strait of Hormuz. We have very good plans to prevent if we had to do it. We are working on these plans all the time,” McKenzie told Brennan later in the show. “It would be a blow for world trade, for a while, but in the end, the strait would be cleared, and I am quite confident that the Iranian navy would all be poured at the end of this operation.”

The United States operation On Saturday, that the Trump administration appointed “Operation Midnight Hammer”, bombed three nuclear sites in Iran, which said that the president of the joint staff chiefs was “extremely serious damage and destruction”. The Pentagon has recognized that capturing a complete evaluation of the effectiveness of the operation would take time.

Brennan pressed Rubio on specific information pushed the president to make the decision to strike Iran. In March, the director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declared before the congress that Iran did not build a nuclear weapon, testimony Mr. Trump said “fake.” Rubio said Iran, before strikes, had “everything they needed to build nuclear weapons”, and stressed the assessments of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA.

“This is what the whole world knows. Forget intelligence,” Rubio told Brennan. “What is the AIEA knows, they enrich uranium far beyond everything you need for a civil nuclear program. So why are you enriching uranium at 60% if you do not intend to use it to bring it to 90 and build a weapon? Why do you develop ICBM?”

Brennan asked Rubio if the United States will defend other nations in the Middle East if Iran launches attacks on their soil in response. Rubio said that this is why the American bases – and around 40,000 American troops – are positioned through the Middle East.

“Well, that’s exactly why they are there,” he said, adding: “All these bases are there because they are afraid that Iran will attack them.”

Rubio insisted that the United States defends the Americans, including the American soldiers on the military bases, against Iran and its attorney.

“They will attack us, that’s what they threaten to do,” he said. “We will therefore defend our employees, of course. We will defend our people. Well, they will attack our bases. And these are our bases, and we will defend our staff, and we are ready to do so.”

Rubio said he didn’t want to predict what the United States could do if Iran retaliated.

“There are no military operations planned at the moment against Iran unless they spoil and attack Americans or American interests, so they will have a problem,” he said. “Then they will have a problem, and I’m not going to disseminate what these problems are.”