U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed claims that U.S. President Donald Trump acted against Iran for the benefit of Israel or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying U.S. policy toward Tehran has remained consistent across administrations.
Speaking with Fox News host Sean Hannity aboard Air Force One en route to China on Wednesday, Rubio said every U.S. president over the past two decades has viewed Iran’s nuclear program as a major threat.
“Every president in the last 20 years has been worried about the Iran nuclear program,” Rubio said, noting that former U.S. President Barack Obama pursued the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran “because he was worried about Iran.”
“Not a good nuclear deal, but he made one,” Rubio said.
Rubio contrasted Trump’s approach with that of his predecessors, citing the administration’s “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign and the 2020 killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, whom Rubio described as “a threat to the United States.”
He stated that former U.S. President Joe Biden sought to revive the nuclear agreement and pointed to European concerns about Tehran’s activities, noting that countries including France and Germany had imposed sanctions on Iran.
“The whole world has seen Iran was building up a conventional capability where they would have so many missiles and so many drones that they could overwhelm anybody’s defenses,” Rubio said.
He warned that Tehran was nearing the point at which its nuclear program could no longer be stopped militarily.
“They were on the verge, and a year from now they would have been at that point,” he said. “The president said that’s an intolerable risk.”
Rubio said Iran was also seeking to build a missile and drone arsenal large enough to deter any attack on the Islamic Republic, the result of which would have been “catastrophic for the region.”
“Once they had that immunity, then they would break out toward a weapon,” he said. “The president is not going to allow that to happen under his watch.”
