US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the price for Iran’s recent escalation in violence will increase every night until leadership in Tehran “come to their senses,” while speaking with reporters on the sidelines of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum on Thursday.
He claimed that Iran is begging to make another deal with Washington after the previous US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding collapsed, but noted that “it looks like they are not ready to make a deal.”
“The problem is that any time they make a deal, the people that are in charge either break it or they want to change it,” Rubio said.
He posited that Iran may be ready to make a deal in a few days, “as they continue to suffer great losses.”
Regarding US President Donald Trump’s position on how to deal with Iran, Rubio stated that Trump will take “a head for an eye,” referencing Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s previous claims that Iran operates with an “eye for an eye” strategy.
Rubio asserted that as long as Trump is in office, Iran will never be allowed to develop or possess a nuclear weapon.
Tehran funding terror proxies, nuclear program instead of Iranian people
“The number one threat to the world is these lunatics in possession of a nuclear weapon,” he said in reference to Iran’s leadership, adding that “some of them are lunatics, some of them are evil, and some of them are evil lunatics.”
Rubio asserted that Iran has the potential to be the richest country in the Middle East but decried Tehran for choosing to fund terrorist proxies, rather than investing in its own people.
“They take their money, and they give it to Hezbollah, they give it to Hamas, they give it to the Houthis, they give it to Shia militias, they give it to sponsor terrorism all over the world,” he elaborated.
When asked about whether the US is still seeking regime change after having killed many top Iranian officials during Operation Epic Fury, Rubio stated that the US’s top priority is pursuing a denuclearized Iran that will never have a nuclear weapon.