‘I Don’t Understand the Confusion’: Marco Rubio Slams Media for Questioning Reason for Iran Operation

Secretary of State Marco Rubio tsk-tsked the media while articulating the reason for the Trump administration’s ongoing military operation in Iran on Monday.

Amid continued debate over the purpose and efficacy of that operation, Rubio tried to set the record straight during a gaggle with reporters on Capitol Hill.

“So look, the United States conducted this operation with a clear goal in mind. I haven’t got a chance to see a lot of reporting. I don’t understand what the confusion is. Let me explain it to you, and I’ll do it once again as clearly as possible. Perhaps you’ll report it that way,” began Rubio before diving in:

The United States is conducting an operation to eliminate the threat of Iran’s short-range ballistic missiles, and the threat posed by their navy, particularly to naval assets. That is what it is focused on doing right now, and it’s doing quite successfully. I’ll leave it to the Pentagon, and the Department of War to discuss the tactics behind that, and the progress that’s being made. That is the clear objective of this mission.

The second question that’s been asked is, “Why now?” Well, there’s two reasons why now. The first is, it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States, or Israel, or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States. The orders had been delegated down to the field commanders. It was automatic, and in fact, it bared to be true, because in fact within an hour of the initial attack on the leadership compound, the missile forces in the south — and in the north, for that matter — had already been activated to launch. In fact, those had already pre-positioned. The third is the assessment that was made that if we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties. And so the president made the very wise decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we’d suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed. And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act.

Going back to the purpose; the purpose of this is to destroy that missile capability. Why does Iran want that ballistic missile capability? What they are trying to do and have been trying to for a very long time is build a conventional weapons capability as a shield where they can hide behind, meaning there would come a point where they have so many conventional missile, so many drones, and can inflict so much damage that no one can do anything about their nuclear program. That is what they were trying to do, is put themselves in a place of immunity where the damage they could inflict on the region would be so high that no one can do anything about their nuclear program or their nuclear ambitions. They are producing, by some estimates, over 100 of these missiles a month. Compare that to the six or seven interceptors that can be built a month. They can build a hundred of these a month, not to mention the thousands of one-way attack drones that they also have. They’ve been doing this for a very long time, and by the way, they’ve been doing it under sanction. You see the attacks they’re conducting right now? They’re attacking airports, they’re attacking hotels, they are hitting not just military bases, they’re attacking our embassies directly, they’re attacking facilities that have nothing to do with war or with military, and that’s a weakened Iran. That’s an Iran despite years of sanction. Imagine a year from now, or a year and a half from now the capabilities they would have to inflict damage on us. It’s an unacceptable risk, especially in the hands of a regime that’s run by radical clerics. The ayatollah is a radical, was a radical cleric. That entire regime is led by radical clerics who don’t make geopolitical decisions. They make decisions on the basis of theology, their view of theology, which is an apocalyptic one. That has to be taken very seriously as well. So that was the purpose for what this operation is all about. That’s what it’s focused on. As the president said earlier today, it is on or ahead of schedule. I will defer to the Department of War to discuss the progress being made at a tactical level. But it was the right decision and an important decision for the safety and security of the world.

Watch above via Fox News.

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