28 mins ago
Rubio says US, allies need to have a ‘plan B’ if Iran doesn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that the United States and its allies need to have a “plan B” ready in the event Iran decides not to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
“I can tell you that what I hope there is, this is what I hope for, and this is the point I made is, we all would love to see an agreement with Iran in which the Straits are open and they abandon their nuclear ambitions and so forth, their nuclear weapons ambitions,” Rubio said in Helsingborg, Sweden, where he had traveled Friday to attend a NATO foreign ministers meeting.
“That’s what we would all hope for. And that’s what we’re going to continue to work on. And that’s what work is ongoing, even as I speak to you now in that regard. But we also have to have a plan B, and plan B is what if Iran refuses to open the straits? What if Iran decides we refuse to open the straits, we’re going to own the straits and we’re going to charge tolls for it? Okay, at that point, something has to be done about it,” he continued.
“So all I’m saying and I’ve said, and I think this has been reiterated by others, there are other countries that agree with me on this, is that we have to start thinking about what do we do if a few weeks from now, Iran decides we don’t care, we’re going to keep the straits closed. We’re going to sink any ship that doesn’t listen to us or doesn’t pay us. Then someone’s going to have to do something about it. They’re not just going to voluntarily reopen the straits in that scenario. So we have to start thinking about it. I raised that point today. I got a lot of nods. I got a lot of people that came up to me afterwards and acknowledged it. But we don’t have an announcement for you today in terms of something that’s happening,” Rubio added.
“I know there’s a plan in place for what to do if the shooting stops. That’s what the French UK initiative talks about when the conditions are set, what they mean by what the conditions are set is when no one is shooting,” Rubio said about a European-led plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. “But we have to have a plan B for if someone is shooting, you know, how do you reopen the Straits. And so I made that point today. I don’t know if that would be a NATO mission necessarily, but it would certainly be NATO countries that can contribute to it.”
