US Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlined demands for a peace deal with Iran. Photo / Getty Images
Secretary of State Marco Rubio today outlined the Trump Administration’s demands for a peace deal with Iran, saying the regime in Tehran must reopen the Strait of Hormuz and commit to future talks on curtailing its nuclear programme before Washington will lift its blockade of Iranian ports or ease financial sanctions strangling the country’s economy.
His comments before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee were to date the most specific to be offered publicly on the United States’ negotiating position as recent tit-for-tat attacks between the two sides and Israel’s aggressive military action in Lebanon threaten to collapse the talks.
Rubio addressed the committee before another scheduled appearance before a House panel on State Department spending.
The sessions, set to continue tomorrow, are ostensibly an opportunity for the secretary to defend the Administration’s nearly US$36 billion ($60b) budget request for his agency.
Unlike Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s combative testimony earlier this year – during which he called members of Congress critical of the war in Iran America’s “biggest adversary” – Rubio’s exchanges with lawmakers were mostly cordial.
But from the outset lawmakers pressed Rubio, who also serves as US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, to explain the state of the Iran conflict and efforts to conclude it.
Members of both parties have shown increased frustration with the war’s costs and potential political liabilities before the November Midterms.
“This war and the Administration’s decision to blockade has now held the entire world economy, and the US economy, hostage to the ability to negotiate an agreement with Iran,” said Senator Chris Murphy (Democrat-Connecticut).
Rubio said that a peace deal would require Iran to pledge to reopen the Strait of Hormuz – a vital waterway for the oil and fertiliser trade that has been closed to virtually all commercial traffic since soon after the Administration launched the military campaign in late February.
The disruption has rocked global energy markets and led to an increase in US domestic fuel prices that some Republicans fear could cost the party as it seeks to retain control of Congress.
Trump is also demanding that Iran enter into “negotiating severe and long-term limitations” on its nuclear programme, including disposing its highly enriched uranium, Rubio said. The US Secretary of State noted that those talks, if Iran commits to them, could last for months.
The Administration is not willing to ease sanctions on Tehran solely in exchange for reopening the strait, Rubio said.
Under further questioning from Senator Ted Cruz (Republican-Texas), Rubio acknowledged that one of Trump’s other red lines during the talks was Iran’s support for terrorist proxy groups.
Over the weekend, the US military struck Iranian drone and radar sites, with Iran later launching missiles at Kuwait, a close American ally in the Gulf. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced yesterday that he had ordered new strikes on suspected Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut.
Israel’s escalation of hostilities in Lebanon prompted Iran to announce the suspension of negotiations with the US over ending the war, raising doubts about whether the two sides will extend a ceasefire first agreed to in April that would lead to new talks over Iran’s nuclear programme.
In an apparent effort to salvage the negotiations, Trump said later yesterday that he had spoken to Netanyahu and representatives of Hezbollah and urged both sides to call off attacks.
He then announced on social media that US talks with Iran were back on and continuing “at a rapid pace”.
Administration officials had previously said that a memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran is undergoing last-minute revisions and pending Trump’s approval.
Rubio acknowledged that there are tensions within Iran’s post-war Government but said Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who is believed to have been badly injured in a strike early in the conflict, is alive and “increasingly engaging” on government matters.
Khamenei’s predecessor and father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in the war’s opening salvos.
Rubio said that Iran’s post-war Government is led by Mojtaba Khamenei, who in turn is advised by a council made up of members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp and “other elements of the regime”.
Iran’s foreign minister and parliamentary speaker need approval from the council before any decisions can be made, Rubio said, appearing to acknowledge the slow pace of the peace talks.
Tehran’s use of couriers and security concerns have caused delays and miscommunications in the Iranian system, Rubio said.
They need to “get guidance from them, and that process often times takes three to five days to get a response”, Rubio said.
While Rubio said the joint US and Israeli bombing campaign had been “highly successful” in reaching its military objective of degrading Iran’s defence industrial base, he made it clear that Iran still retains drone and missile capabilities.
“They still have a lot of drones because these are easy to make,” Rubio said.
His characterisation is more in line with recent US intelligence assessments that found that Iran retains 70% or more of its pre-war stockpiles of missiles and pre-war inventories of mobile launchers.
It contrasts sharply with how Trump and Hegseth have described the success of the war’s bombing operations.
Earlier this year, Hegseth said Iran’s missile and drone programs were “overwhelmingly destroyed”.
In a sign of the war’s lagging popularity within the GOP, more Republicans have backed largely symbolic measures intended to halt the fighting in recent weeks. Democratic-led war powers resolutions in the House and Senate could come up for votes as soon as this week.
The deteriorating security situation in the Middle East occurs as Rubio’s top aides are set to convene the next round of talks between Lebanese and Israeli diplomats in Washington today and tomorrow, aimed at securing a longer-term security and ceasefire deal.
One US official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic talks, said that Israel’s escalation in Lebanon was so “dramatic” that Lebanon may decide to walk away from the talks.
A second US official said the Trump Administration was throwing its full weight behind Israel, saying “the United States does not expect Israel to absorb ongoing attacks on its civilians by a terrorist organisation”.
During the hearing, Republicans and Democrats also pushed Rubio to explain the Trump Administration’s policy towards China, including the months-long delay in a US$14b arms sale to Taiwan, the self-governing island Beijing claims as its own territory.
Rubio said that the package was “under review” by the White House and argued that Beijing’s objections to the sale – raised during Trump’s summit with China’s President Xi Jinping in May – was not “holding up our decision-making”.
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