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The United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to the press before the United States President Donald Trump departs the White House en route Miami, Florida on March 20, 2026, in Washington DC. [Celal Güneş – Anadolu Agency]
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that Washington is close to achieving its objectives in Iran “in a matter of weeks,” adding that President Donald Trump has “a number of options available” to prevent Iran from controlling the Strait of Hormuz, Anadolu reports.
During an interview with ABC News, Rubio said that the US is focused on the “destruction” of Iran’s air force, navy, and factories where they make all their weapons, as well as the substantial reduction in the number of missiles they possess.
“All of those objectives are being met, on or ahead of schedule and should be able to achieve in a matter of weeks,” he said.
On the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Rubio said Trump has “a number of options available” to prevent Iran from imposing control or a tolling system on the vital waterway.
“The president has a number of options available to him if he so chooses to prevent that from happening. … Obviously, I’m not going to discuss what those options are, and we’re not going to discuss military tactics,” he added.
The US and Israel have been carrying out airstrikes on Iran since Feb. 28, killing more than 1,340 people.
Iran has retaliated with drone and missile strikes targeting Israel, along with Jordan, Iraq, and Gulf countries hosting US military assets, causing casualties and infrastructure damage while disrupting global markets and aviation.
At least 13 US service members have been killed since the war began, and the conflict has driven up energy prices and affected shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which is a critical global oil chokepoint, with a significant portion of global oil shipments passing through it.
The US has sent Iran a 15-point plan to end the war and outlined steps regarding Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, as well as maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran rejected the proposal and outlined five conditions for ending the war, including a halt to attacks, guarantees against renewed conflict, recognition of its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, and reparations for war damages.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/
The son of a Lebanese soldier, cries as he sits on his father’s coffin who was killed by Israeli airstrikes, during a funeral procession in Khraibeh village, eastern Lebanon, March 8, 2026
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Rudderless and unprincipled, Britain bobs along in the wake of a crazed US regime which is bulldozing the architecture of international law and the entire postwar system.
The shadow of fascism we see in the Trump administration’s brutal domestic record — especially the lethal violence inflicted on US cities by the Ice agency — looms in its foreign policy too.
We know that Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference cited the end of the second world war as the moment European greatness died and its “vast empires” began their retreat before “godless communist revolutions and anti-colonial uprisings.”
We know that Trump has resumed the open celebration of conflict characteristic of fascism, renaming the Defence Secretary the Secretary of War; and that that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth says openly and repeatedly that the US no longer cares about the legality of its conduct.
This year, so far, has been one of uninterrupted US aggression on multiple fronts. And if Donald Trump is not stopped, that aggression will keep escalating until we are faced with world war between nuclear powers.
Ignore the ranting Islamophobes of the right: it is not the anti-war left repeating Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement. Trump’s United States is the rampaging power threatening world peace. The appeasers are those who won’t stand up to him.
So it is important to be clear. Victory for the US and Israel in Iran would be far more dangerous for the world than any other outcome in this war.
That is nothing to do with sympathising with the Iranian state or political system. It is simply acknowledging the reality that if Trump wins he is going to start more and bigger wars: and this one is already engulfing much of the Middle East.
So we must challenge the despatch of British ships to the Gulf, the use of British bases to attack Iran and any engagement of British forces in this war. We are assisting a calamitous project that threatens the whole world.
The public are with us; some MPs, though not enough, are speaking out. But it will take a political revolution to detach Britain from the US war machine. That should now be a priority task for everyone on the left.
Keir Starmer explains that UK is participating defensively in Trump and Israel’s criminal war for Israel’s genocidal expansion in Iran and states that he supports Zionism “without qualification”.Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of PeaceOrcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of PeaceOrcas discuss rotting brain. Front Orca says “Wish someone would lock him up”.
A protestor holds up a sign as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing about US policy toward Venezuela on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on January 28, 2026. (Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“Rubio’s dangerously expansive vision to transform the United States into a colonizing power in the Americas must be challenged,” one watchdog leader said of the US secretary of state.
In addition to asserting that “there is no war against Venezuela,” despite US forces killing scores of people there while abducting its president earlier this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday laid out for a Senate panel how the Trump administration intends to continue controlling the South American nation’s oil and related profits.
Legal experts have argued that US President Donald Trump’s blockade of Venezuela’s oil, abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores—who have both pleaded not guilty to federal narco-terrorism charges—and bombings of boats allegedly smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean all violate international law.
“The ongoing military actions in the Caribbean and South America, including the abduction of Venezuela’s president, are wrong, illegal under US and international law, and unconstitutional,” Robert Weissman, co-president of the group Public Citizen, said before the Senate hearing. “Congressional Republicans have blocked war powers resolutions that would end the US aggression in Venezuela, an extremely dangerous abdication of congressional responsibility to check presidential unlawfulness.”
“Marco Rubio’s central role in the planning and execution of the scheme to violate the sovereignty of Venezuela and steal the country’s oil merits a deep investigation by Congress, and potentially the removal of Rubio as secretary of state,” Weissman continued. “Rubio’s dangerously expansive vision to transform the United States into a colonizing power in the Americas must be challenged.”
Testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—on which he previously served—Rubio said that “Maduro is an indicted drug trafficker, not a legal head of state,” described his abduction as “an operation to aid law enforcement,” and declared that “the United States is prepared to help oversee Venezuela’s transition from a criminal state to a responsible partner.”
Rubio, the acting national security adviser, insisted that Trump wasn’t planning for any more military action in Venezuela—but also would not rule out such action, potentially without congressional authorization, in “self-defense” against an “imminent” threat.
Trump has repeatedly made clear through public statements that his Venezuela policy is focused on its petroleum reserves, seemingly to enrich the fossil fuel leaders who helped him return to power. American forces have seized several tankers in the Caribbean Sea linked to the country—which critics have condemned as “piracy”—and the first US sale of Venezuelan oil went to the company of a trader who donated millions to the president’s 2024 campaign, which Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) last week called “yet another example of his unchecked corruption.”
Describing US control of Venezuela’s nationalized petroleum industry, Rubio told the committee:
Objective number one was stability… And one of the tools that’s available to us is the fact that we have sanctions on oil. There is oil that is sanctioned that cannot move from Venezuela because of our quarantine. And so what we did is we entered into an arrangement with them, and the arrangement is this: On the oil that is sanctioned and quarantined, we will allow you to move it to market. We will allow you to move it to market at market prices—not at the discount China was getting. In return, the funds from that will be deposited into an account that we will have oversight over, and you will spend that money for the benefit of the Venezuelan people…
This is not going to be the permanent mechanism, but this is a short-term mechanism in which the needs of the Venezuelan people can be met through a process that we’ve created, where they will submit every month a budget of this is what we need funded. We will provide for them at the front end what that money cannot be used for. And they have been very cooperative in this regard. In fact, they have pledged to use a substantial amount of those funds to purchase medicine and equipment directly from the United States.
In an exchange with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Rubio said that an “audit process” has not yet been set up but will be, adding that “we’ve only made one payment” and it “retrospectively will be audited, but it was important we made that payment because they had to meet payroll. They had to keep sanitation workers, police officers, government workers on staff.”
Shaheen noted that the oil reportedly sold for $500 million, but only $300 million went to Venezuela’s government, now led by Maduro’s former deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, and asked Rubio about the remaining $200 million. The secretary said that the rest of the money was in a temporary account in Qatar that will ultimately become a US Treasury blocked account.
Summarizing the Trump administration’s plans, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said: “I think the scope of the project that you are undertaking in Venezuela is without precedent. You are taking their oil at gunpoint; you are holding and selling that oil; putting, for now, the receipts in an offshore Middle Eastern account; you’re deciding how and for what purposes that money is gonna be used in a country of 30 million people. I think a lot of us believe that that is destined for failure.”
Highlighting that “a month later, we have no information on a timetable for a democratic transition, Maduro’s people are still in charge, most of the political prisoners are in jail—and by the way, those that have been let out have a gag order on them from the government—the opposition leader is still in exile,” Murphy added, “this looks, already, like it is a failure.”
At one point during the nearly three-hour hearing, Leonardo Flores, a Venezuelan-American with the anti-war group CodePink, shouted, “Marco Rubio, you and Trump are thugs!”
US Capitol Police removed Flores from the hearing. As he was being led away, the protester said that “sanctions are a form of collective punishment of Venezuelan citizens. That’s a war crime. Hands off Venezuela! Hands off Cuba!”
Asked by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) on Wednesday, “Will you make a public commitment today to rule out US regime change in Cuba,” Rubio—the son of Cuban immigrants—replied: “Regime change? Oh no, I think we would like to see the regime there change. That doesn’t mean that we’re gonna to make a change, but we would love to see a change. There’s no doubt about the fact that it would be of great benefit to the United States if Cuba was no longer governed by an autocratic regime.”
Since the abduction operation, there have been “free Maduro” protests in both Venezuela and Cuba, which lost 32 citizens in the Trump administration’s attack on Caracas. Speaking to thousands of people gathered outside the US Embassy in Havana earlier this month, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said that “the current US administration has opened the door to an era of barbarism, plunder, and neo-fascism.”
“No one here surrenders,” he continued, taking aim at not only Trump but also Rubio. “The current emperor of the White House and his infamous secretary of state haven’t stopped threatening me.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
The beach in the Gaza Strip has become a makeshift camp for displaced people whose homes were destroyed. Photograph: Omar Ashtawy/APAImages/Shutterstock
White House says seven-strong board, chaired by Trump, will steer Gaza through next phase of reconstruction
Donald Trump has appointed the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and former British prime minister Tony Blair to a newly created Gaza “board of peace”, a body he claims will steer the next phase of reconstruction and governance in the war-ravaged territory.
The White House said the seven-strong “founding executive board” will also include Trump’s special envoy, the property developer Steve Witkoff; the World Bank president, Ajay Banga; and the president’s son-in-law and long-time adviser Jared Kushner. Trump himself will serve as chair, with further appointments expected in the coming weeks.
“Each executive board member will oversee a defined portfolio critical to Gaza’s stabilization and long-term success, including, but not limited to, governance capacity-building, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attraction, large-scale funding, and capital mobilization,” a White House statement said.
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Blair’s inclusion is likely to prove contentious in the region. The former Labour leader remains a divisive figure in the Middle East for his role in the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Soon after leaving office in 2007 he became special representative of the Quartet, a group composed of the US, EU, Russia and the UN seeking peace between Israel and the Palestinians. But he became seen as too close to the Israelis and stepped down in 2015.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
The son of a Lebanese soldier, cries as he sits on his father’s coffin who was killed by Israeli airstrikes, during a funeral procession in Khraibeh village, eastern Lebanon, March 8, 2026
