Rubio: ‘We Are Going to Achieve Our Objectives in a Matter of Weeks, Not Months’

Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he anticipated the United States would achieve its “objectives” against Iran in “a matter of weeks, not months.”

“Let’s talk about the President’s comments overnight, talking about taking the oil on Kharg Island. How would he do this?” ABC host George Stephanopoulos said. “Why would he do this? Won’t it take ground troops?”

Rubio replied, “Well, first of all, it’s important to remember the objectives of this operation from the very beginning. We were going to — we are destroying Iran’s navy. We are destroying their ability — their missile launchers by a significant percentage. We’re going to wipe out their defense industrial base, meaning their ability to make new missiles and new drones in the future, because it posed a great threat to the region. 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.”

“Now, they are making threats about controlling the Hormuz Straits in perpetuity, creating a tolling system and the like,” he continued. “That’s not going to be allowed to happen. And the President has a number of options available to him, if he so chooses, to prevent that from happening. Obviously I’m not going to discuss what those options are, and we’re not going to discuss military tactics. The Department of War would be in charge of those things. I’d refer you to them, but obviously they’re not going to discuss it with you either. But there is a way forward here to achieve our objectives. We are going to achieve our objectives in a matter of weeks, not months.”

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