• What Happened: Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared Iran a "terroristic regime" and confirmed U.S. forces are systematically destroying its missiles, launchers, factories, and navy as part of Operation Epic Fury.
  • Why It Matters: Rubio says Iran was months away from building a conventional weapons shield large enough to protect its nuclear program from any response. The operation stopped that clock.
  • Bottom Line: Every day this mission continues, Iran gets weaker. Rubio says the world will be safer when it is done, and the U.S. military is already delivering.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not mince words. Standing at the State Department on Monday, he looked the press in the eye and said what every patriot already knew.

"This is a terrorist government," Rubio said. "This is a terroristic regime. And we are seeing them conduct terrorism using nation-state elements, using weapons like missiles and one-way attack drones."

He described a regime that has spent years attacking its neighbors, bombing embassies, hitting energy infrastructure, and targeting civilian populations across the Middle East. Not a rival nation engaged in diplomacy. A terrorist operation hiding behind the flag of a country.

That is exactly why the United States is at war with it.

Rubio was direct about the mission objective. "It is to destroy the ability of this regime to launch missiles, both by destroying their missiles and their launchers, destroy the factories that make these missiles, and destroy their Navy," he said.

And it is working.

"Every single day this regime in Iran has less missiles, has less launchers, their factories work less, and their navy is being eviscerated," Rubio said. "And the world is going to be a safer and a better place when this mission is accomplished."

The stakes could not have been higher. Iran was producing over 100 short-range ballistic missiles per month, compared to only six or seven interceptors that can be built in the same time. On top of that, Tehran was fielding thousands of one-way attack drones. Rubio said their goal was to reach a point of immunity, where the damage they could inflict on the region was so catastrophic that no one could touch their nuclear program.

That window is now closing.

Rubio confirmed the operation is on or ahead of schedule, and that the U.S. military is carrying out the mission with overwhelming force and precision.

The men and women of the United States military are doing their job. Iran is running out of missiles. America is not running out of resolve.