Operation Midnight Hammer: US state secy Marco Rubio denies limited damage reports; says Iran now ‘much further away from nukes’

US secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that Iran is “much further away from a nuclear weapon.”In an interview with news portal Politico on the sidelines of the Nato summit in The Hague, Rubio offered a more nuanced assessment of US airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities earlier this week, in contrast with his boss President Trump’s assertions at the same summit, that Iran’s Fardo, Natanz and Isfahan sites have been “completely obliterated.”“The bottom line is, they are much further away from a nuclear weapon today than they were before the president took this bold action,” Rubio said. “That’s the most important thing to understand, significant, very significant, substantial damage was done to a variety of different components, and we’re just learning more about it.”The interview comes in the backdrop of a leaked initial assessment by the Pentagon’s defense intelligence agency, first reported by CNN earlier this week, which suggested US strikes may have left key parts of Iran’s nuclear facilities intact, setting the program back only by months. The US intelligence community is expected to release further assessments in the coming days and weeks, though differing analyses are common among the various spy agencies.Rubio rejected the media reports as “false,” saying they failed to present the complete picture.“I hate commenting on these stories, because often the first story is wrong and the person putting it out there has an agenda,” he said. “That story is a false story, and it’s one that really shouldn’t be rereported because it doesn’t accurately reflect what’s happening.”While Trump has hinted at regime change in Iran on social media, Rubio clarified that it is not the objective of the US government.“The world is filled with regimes I don’t like and the president doesn’t like, and a lot of us wish didn’t exist. The United States’ job is not to go around and set up governments for every country,” he said.“Our national security issue with Iran is with a clerical regime that wants nuclear weapons so they can threaten us, threaten Israel today, threaten us tomorrow. And the president’s made clear that’s not going to happen.”Rubio went on to add that Trump views regime change as a likely outcome if Iran’s leadership stays on its current path.Rubio noted that although Trump considers a range of views and advice, “once the president makes a decision, his instincts are uncanny, and we have to appreciate that.”“I find it curious when people argue as if somehow this is some coalition government and we all get a vote. There’s only one vote here,” Rubio said. He added: “When he says, ‘this is the direction I want to go,’ our job is not to spend all day trying to change his mind.”