Iran live updates: Rubio dismisses Iran peace proposal, stresses nuclear issue

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post to X on Monday that Iran's oil industry is "creaking" under the pressure of the U.S. naval blockade, predicting that the country's ability to pump oil "will soon collapse."

"While the surviving IRGC Leaders are trapped like drowning rats in a sewage pipe, Iran's creaking oil industry is starting to shut in production thanks to the U.S. BLOCKADE," Bessent wrote.

"Pumping will soon collapse. GASOLINE SHORTAGES IN IRAN NEXT!" he added.

Speaking to a reporter in St. Petersburg during his visit to Russia, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that the U.S. had achieved none of its goals and was therefore asking for negotiations -- a request Araghchi said Iran is "considering."

Regarding bilateral Iranian-Russian relations, Araghchi said the two countries are "strategic partners" and that cooperation between them would continue.

Speaking to Fox News in an interview published on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that competing groups of "hardliners" in Iran are complicating stalled peace talks with the U.S.

"They're all hardliners in Iran. But there are hardliners who understand they have to run a country and an economy and there are hardliners that are completely motivated by theology," Rubio said.

"The hardliners that are motivated by theology are not just the (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) officials, but obviously the supreme leader and the council that surrounds him," Rubio continued.

"And then you've got the political class -- the foreign minister, the president, the speaker, the majlis, these guys -- they're hardliners too, but they also understand the country has to have an economy. People have to eat. They have to figure out a way to pay salaries in their government," Rubio said.

"Unfortunately, the hardliners, with an apocalyptic vision of the future, have the ultimate power in that country," Rubio added.

Secretary Marco Rubio suggested to Fox News in an interview on Monday that Iran's peace proposal falls short of the U.S. conditions for ending the war, now entering its third month.

Two officials familiar with the matter told ABC News that the Iranian proposal consists of a loosening of Tehran's grip on the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the lifting of the U.S. blockade. Talks on Iran's nuclear program would then be pushed back to an unspecified future date, Tehran's proposal suggested.

Rubio, though, said the nuclear issue was at the heart of the U.S. position. "The nuclear question is the reason why we're in this in the first place," Rubio said.

Rubio also said the U.S. would not allow Tehran to retain control over the Strait of Hormuz, or to continue to charge tolls to shipping passing through.

"Those are international waterways. They cannot normalize, nor can we tolerate them trying to normalize, a system in which the Iranians decide who gets to use an international waterway and how much you have to pay them to use it," he said.

Rubio underscored U.S. concerns about the regime's ability to agree to a deal and the status of new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.

"One of the impediments here is that our negotiators aren't just negotiating with Iranians. Those Iranians then have to negotiate with other Iranians in order to figure out what they can agree to, what they can offer, what they're willing to do, even who they're willing to meet with," Rubio said.

Asked whether he believed Mojtaba Khamenei was still alive, Rubio replied, "We have indications that he is. Obviously they claim that he is. We don't have evidence that he's not."

"I think the question between alive and in power are two different questions. You can be alive -- but I think the unresolved questions here are does he have the same credibility as his father did," Rubio said.

Rubio also suggested that the Iranian proposal may not have the backing of all factions jostling for influence in Tehran. "I think there are still questions about whether the person submitting it had the authority to submit that offer," he said.

Nonetheless, Rubio said he believed the Iranians "are serious about getting themselves out of the mess that they're in."