US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Iran was attempting to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles as the Trump administration ramped up pressure on the regime over its nuclear program ahead of critical talks in Geneva.
Rubio, who is in the Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis attending the 50th Regular Meeting of the Conference of CARICOM Heads of Government, told media the talks would largely be focused on Tehran’s nuclear program and said its insistence on not discussing the future of its ballistic missiles program remained a “big, big problem”.
His comments follow on from US Vice President JD Vance warning on Wednesday (Washington time) that Iran would not be allowed to build a nuclear weapon, and as US President Donald Trump used his State of the Union speech to lay out his justification for military strikes against Iran.
Iran and the US are to meet on Thursday (Geneva time) for their third round of talks under the mediation of Oman, long an interlocutor between Tehran and the West. A flight carrying Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his team arrived late on Wednesday in Geneva, where they will meet American officials led by special US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff.
Ahead of that meeting, Vance told Fox News that while Trump preferred a diplomatic solution, he was ready to unleash the military against Iran if necessary.
“Most Americans understand that you can’t let the craziest and the worst regime in the world have nuclear weapons,” Vance said.
Asked whether removing Iran’s supreme leader was also an aim for the Trump administration, Vance said Trump would “make the decision about how to ensure Iran does not have a nuclear weapon”.
In his State of the Union speech on Tuesday (Washington time), Trump warned that Iran was working on technology to directly threaten the United States.
“They’ve already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America,” Trump said.
“They were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program, and in particular nuclear weapons, yet they continue. They’re starting it all over.”
Iranian officials labelled his remarks as “big lies”.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei sought to compare Trump to Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister, accusing the US president and his administration of conducting a “disinformation and misinformation campaign” against Iran.
“Whatever they’re alleging in regards to Iran’s nuclear program, Iran’s ballistic missiles, and the number of casualties during January’s unrest is simply the repetition of ‘big lies,’” Baghaei wrote on X.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker, said the US could either try diplomacy or face Iran’s wrath.
“If you choose the table of diplomacy – a diplomacy in which the dignity of the Iranian nation and mutual interests are respected – we will also be at that table,” Qalibaf said, according to the semiofficial Student News Network, a media outlet believed to be close to the all-volunteer Basij force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
“But if you decide to repeat past experiences through deception, lies, flawed analysis and false information, and launch an attack in the midst of negotiations, you will undoubtedly taste the firm blow of the Iranian nation and the country’s defensive forces.”
The sabre-rattling from both sides ahead of the talks in Geneva has raised the prospect of US military strikes against Iran. While uncertainty hangs over the timing of any possible attack, there are growing concerns that any military action could plunge the wider region into chaos.
Dependents of Australian officials posted in Israel and Lebanon have been directed by the federal government to leave the region. The updated advice for both countries on Smartraveller notes the direction has been made “in response to the deteriorating security situation in the Middle East”.
The Australian government has also extended voluntary departures to the dependents of Australian officials posted in three other Middle East locations: Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Australia’s embassies in Amman, Doha and Abu Dhabi, and the Dubai consulate remain open.
The US has assembled the largest force of American warships and aircraft in the Middle East in decades, including two aircraft carrier strike groups.
The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three guided-missile destroyers have been in the Arabian Sea since the end of January after being redirected from the South China Sea. The strike group, which brought roughly 5700 additional service members to the region, bolstered the smaller force of a few destroyers and three littoral combat ships that were already in the region.
The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, along with three destroyers and more than 5000 additional service members have also been deployed in the region, bringing the US Navy’s presence in the region to at least 16 ships.
More than 100 fighter jets, including F-35s, F-22s, F-15s and F-16s, have left bases in the US and Europe and were spotted heading towards the Middle East by the Military Air Tracking Alliance, a team of about 30 open-source analysts that routinely analyses military and government flight activity.
The team says it’s also tracked more than 100 fuel tankers and over 200 cargo planes heading into the region and bases in Europe in mid-February.
Satellite photos shot on Tuesday by Planet Labs PBC and analysed by The Associated Press appeared to show the American vessels that typically are docked in Bahrain, the home of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, all out at sea. The 5th Fleet referred questions to the US military’s Central Command, which declined to comment. Before Iran’s attack on Qatar in June, the 5th Fleet similarly scattered its ships at sea to protect against a potential attack.
Trump will probably have a host of military options, which could include surgical attacks on Iran’s air defences or strikes focused on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, experts say. But they warn that Iran could retaliate in ways it hadn’t following attacks last year by the US or Israel, potentially risking American lives and sparking a regional war
“It will be very hard for the Trump administration to do a one-and-done kind of attack in Iran this time around,” said Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at the International Crisis Group. “Because the Iranians would respond in a way that would make all-out conflict inevitable.”
AP, Reuters
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