Video: Rubio on Objectives in Iran | Good Morning America

In a March 30th interview with Good Morning America, Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized the strategic goals of the war against Iran:  

Well, the war—  this operation– and that’s what this is– it’s about very specific objectives. The president laid them out on the first night of the operation. I’ll repeat them to you now…. Number one, the destruction of their air force. Number two, the destruction of their navy. Number three, the severe diminishing of their missile launching capability. And number four, the destruction of their factories so they can’t make more missiles and more drones to threaten us in the future. all of this so that they can never hide behind it to acquire a nuclear weapon. That was our objective from the beginning. That remains our objective now. We are on pace and ahead of schedule on some of those things and we are going to achieve those things in a number of weeks, not in a number of months.

According to Rubio, the U.S. strategy aims to neutralize Iran’s military capabilities and reduce its threat to regional stability.

Rubio hinted that negotiations are being made with new Iranian interlocutors:

There are clearly people there talking to us in ways that previous people in charge in Iran have not spoken to us in the past… You have people over there that are saying some of the right things privately.

When pressed on who they are: 

I’m not going to disclose to you who those people are because it probably would get him in trouble with some other groups of people inside of Iran. Look, there’s some fractures going on there internally. And at the end of the day, I think that if there are people in Iran who now given everything that’s happened, are willing to move in a different direction for their country. That would be great. 

If taken at his word, this suggests that there are divisions and defections within the regime. 

The interview touched on new infrastructural targets.

 If those discussions don’t yield fruit, the United States will blow up and completely obliterate all of their electric generating plants, all their oil wells and Kharg Island, and possibly all desalinization plants.

He remains unequivocal about the long-term risk: 

But we also have to be prepared for the fact that [talks] might fail. That we are dealing with a 47year-old regime that still has a lot of people involved in it who aren’t necessarily big fans of diplomacy or peace.

When pressed on if the war would expand, Rubio declined to answer. 

Here’s the video in full: