Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared Tuesday that the Iran war is “over now,” while laying out what he described as the Trump administration’s non-negotiable conditions for any broader agreement currently under discussion with Tehran — including the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the surrender of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile, and severe long-term restrictions on the regime’s nuclear program before any sanctions relief would be considered.
Speaking in his first public congressional testimony since the launch of Operation Epic Fury in February, Rubio argued the Trump administration’s military and economic pressure campaign has significantly weakened the Islamic Republic while pushing Tehran into negotiations over aspects of its nuclear program the regime had previously refused to even discuss.
“There is the prospect before us — which could happen today, it could happen tomorrow, it could happen next week,” Rubio told lawmakers, referring to ongoing negotiations between Washington and Tehran. “For the first time, certainly in my memory, they have agreed to negotiate aspects of their nuclear program that just a month ago, just a year ago, they were refusing to even mention.”
Rubio said the current phase of negotiations is centered on forcing Iran to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz and commit to follow-up talks over its nuclear infrastructure and highly enriched uranium stockpile, while making clear the administration would not offer upfront sanctions relief in exchange for reopening the strategic waterway.
“They have to announce very clearly the straits are now open. We’re not charging a toll. We will help remove the mines that they put in there, and they will not fire on ships,” Rubio said, adding that Tehran must also agree to negotiations over “severe and long-term limitations and cancellation of enrichment activity.”
Rubio further stressed that any sanctions relief would only come after Tehran takes verifiable steps regarding its nuclear program, distancing the Trump administration’s approach from the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“It is not JCPOA,” Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “[That deal] would have expired this year, and it allowed them to keep all the enrichment equipment that they needed.”
Rubio noted that Iran has already enriched nearly 1,000 pounds of uranium to 60 percent purity — just short of weapons-grade levels — arguing that any future agreement would have to address both Tehran’s enrichment infrastructure and its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
“It would have to deal with that question,” Rubio said, referring to Iran’s enrichment capabilities, “and it would have to deal with the highly enriched uranium that they currently are in possession of.”
The secretary of state said Tehran’s fractured leadership structure and reliance on intermediaries have complicated negotiations, explaining that responses from the regime can sometimes take days as messages move through internal channels and approval councils.
“Complicating that process, unfortunately, is their internal regime is somewhat fractured … it takes days to get responses from their system,” Rubio said.
Rubio also pointed to increasing indications that Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei — who has not appeared publicly since reportedly being wounded during the opening phase of the conflict — is becoming more directly engaged in negotiations.
“I think there are indications out there that he is increasingly engaging at some level, although all of his communications have been in writing and through intermediaries,” Rubio said, adding that Iranian officials are “probably using couriers and things of that nature.”
The remarks came as President Donald Trump pushed back against Iranian media reports claiming negotiations between Washington and Tehran had stalled following renewed Israeli operations against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon.
“Fake News Reports that the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the U.S.A., stopped speaking a few days ago are false and erroneous,” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social. “The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago, and today.”
“Where they lead, one never knows,” Trump added, “but as I told Iran, ‘It’s time, one way or another, for you to make a Deal. You’ve been doing this for 47 years, and it cannot be allowed to go on any longer!’”
IRGC-affiliated outlets Tasnim and Fars had earlier claimed Tehran suspended indirect communications with the United States over Israel’s escalating operations against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon.
Rubio, meanwhile, maintained the administration remains optimistic that negotiations can still produce a broader agreement.
“We’re hopeful that something like that could happen in which the straits would reopen, we would enter into a period of negotiations on very specific topics — delineated negotiations — in the hope of reaching an outcome that’s acceptable to us and something they would be able to do as well,” Rubio said.
Rubio further argued that Operation Epic Fury and the broader U.S.-Israeli pressure campaign had severely degraded Iran’s conventional military capabilities, including major portions of its naval forces, missile-launching infrastructure, and defense industrial base.
“There is no Iranian navy,” Rubio said. “There’s a bunch of Boston whalers with machine guns on them, but there is no navy.”
He added that Iran’s economy has sharply deteriorated under the ongoing blockade and sanctions campaign, pointing to hyperinflation, currency collapse, and growing internal financial strain.
“They have hyperinflation, their currency is completely devalued, they’re struggling to make payroll for their government workers,” Rubio said during a heated exchange with Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), adding that “Iran is in a very serious situation.”
Rubio also scoffed at claims the administration was “begging” Tehran for a deal.
“There’s no begging. No one’s begging for anything here,” Rubio said. “The Iranians might be begging because they’re losing hundreds of millions of dollars a day.”
Rubio further argued the administration’s military campaign deprived Tehran of what he described as the “conventional shield” it had been building to protect its nuclear ambitions — referring to Iran’s missile arsenal, drone capabilities, and broader military infrastructure that he said would have made confronting the regime substantially more dangerous had it been allowed to continue expanding unchecked.
“If it doesn’t work out, then obviously we still have a problem with respect to their nuclear ambitions,” Rubio said. “But what they won’t have is the conventional shield to hide behind any longer.”
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.