By Noah Rothman
Wednesday, June 24, 2026
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has resurfaced after a
conspicuous absence from the diplomatic stage following the implementation of
Donald Trump’s MOU with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In remarks to reporters on Tuesday and Wednesday that
were recirculated in official U.S. government channels, Rubio said what Trump
and JD Vance should have been saying all along.
When asked about ongoing diplomatic efforts to enlist the
Lebanese government in Israel’s campaign to eject the Iran-backed terrorist
group Hezbollah from Lebanon, Rubio called that “a separate process” from peace talks with Iran. In
addition, Rubio said that it was Hezbollah, not Israel, that represents the
obstacle to progress with Iran:
The secretary extended those remarks on Wednesday, which
were also publicized by the Trump administration’s communications shop. “When
we mean open the Straits, we mean open the Straits free,” Rubio
said of the Strait of Hormuz. “The whole world will be against any
mechanism that charges money to use an international waterway. It’s that
simple.” In addition, after he was asked by a reporter if the U.S. would seek
limits on Iran’s conventional drone and missile capabilities, Rubio
deferred to the interests of America’s “longstanding allies in the region.”
All this would be reassuring if it didn’t directly
contradict what the president and vice president have been saying for over a
week, as well as the MOU’s black-and-white text.
Donald Trump didn’t defer to our increasingly freaked-out partners in the Gulf region when he said that Iran “must have missiles to some degree
because others have them,” ignoring the fact that “others” had not deployed
those missiles against civilian targets in Iran.
JD Vance did not treat Israel’s defensive operations
against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon as a “separate issue” when he went on a gratuitous offensive against the
Netanyahu government for supposedly undermining the peace process.
What’s more, when they were going to bat for Iran’s
interests, both Vance and Trump had the MOU on their side.
That document absolutely does undermine the
Israeli-Lebanon peace process by treating Israel as if it were the American
equivalent of an Iranian terrorist proxy — an entity with no sovereignty or
agency beyond what Washington grants it. The MOU most certainly does allow
for a post-peace tolling regime in the strait, if only because it only forbids
tolling within the 60-day window for negotiating a broader nuclear deal (a
window that can be extended indefinitely).
On one hand, it’s reassuring to hear from a cabinet-level
official who is still thinking clearly about the nature of the Iranian threat
to U.S. security. On the other hand, it’s not reassuring at all. After all, the
policy that Rubio is articulating is not the Trump administration’s.
Rubio may still be in the room, but, for now, he’s
clearly on the outs.
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