Cargo vessel hit by unknown projectile in Strait of Hormuz, UKMTO says

US Secretary of State Rubio says "the operation epic Fury is concluded. We achieved the objectives of that operation. We're not cheering for an additional situation to occur. We would prefer the path of peace. What the President would prefer is a deal."

"He would prefer to sit down work out a memorandum of understanding for future negotiations that touches on all the key topics that have to be addressed a full opening of the straits so the world can get back to normal that he and he preferred that be negotiated through the route that Steve and Jared have been working and that all of us have been supporting."

"That's the route he prefers. That is so far, not the route that Iran has chosen. And so the result has been that the United States has to do something about the fact that we're the only nation on earth that can do anything to open up a lane within the Straits of Hormuz to get product and to rescue these people that are trapped in there, and that's what we're undergoing now."

"What that may lead to in the future is speculative. I'm not going to speculate about what it would take or what it would do, but look the message to Iran. These guys are facing. They are facing real, catastrophic destruction to their economy, generational destruction to their economy, generational destruction to the wealth of their country, imposed on themselves by the by the actions that they're taking. They should check themselves before they wreck themselves in the direction that they're going. "

The United States, Bahrain and US partners in the Persian Gulf drafted a UN Security Council resolution to defend freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to hold the world’s economy hostage,” Rubio said in a statement on Tuesday.

The draft resolution requires Iran to cease attacks, mining and tolling, disclose the number and location of sea mines it has laid and cooperate with efforts to remove them, Rubio added.

Rubio said the US looked forward to a vote on the resolution in the coming days.

“The people of Iran are daily victims of the regime, and the President has deep sympathy for what they’re going through,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

“I don’t know of any country in the world where there’s a bigger difference between the people and the people who run the country,” he added.

“This country is run by radical Shia clerics, and that’s not what Iran and the Iranian people are,” he said.

Rubio said Iranians “just want a normal life and a regular life,” adding that Iran has “an incredible history” and “an incredible legacy.”

"If Iran had a nuclear weapon, they'd close the strait, and they'd tell the world, what are you going to do about it? We have a nuclear weapon. We can attack you with it. That's the world none of us want to leave behind. It won't happen under this President's watch," State Secretary Marco Rubio said on Tuesday.

"If Iran had a nuclear weapon and they decided to close the straits and make our gas prices like $9 a gallon or $8 a gallon, or $8 a gallon, we wouldn't be able to do anything about it, because they have a nuclear weapon and a nuclear armed Iran could do whatever they held they want with the straits, and there's nothing anyone will be able to do about it."

"And that's one of the many reasons, apart from like the massive loss of life in a nuclear strike, why Iran can never have a nuclear weapon," he told reporters.

Asked about arming protestors in Iran, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said President Donald Trump was “heartbroken” by images of Iranians facing abuse by their government and wished they had the ability to fight back.

“This is a vicious regime ... These are people that hang people from cranes in the town square,” Rubio told reporters at the White House.

“These are people that hang people from cranes in the town square,” he said.

“So I think what the President is expressing is the desire that he wishes the Iranian people had an ability to fight back against some of these things that are happening to them,” he added.