Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, said in an interview with Breitbart that Hezbollah is “100% an Iranian proxy,” and that Shiite militias in Iraq are also supported by the Islamic Republic, with the capability to conduct missile attacks on Saudi Arabia and Israel from Iraqi territory.

Rubio added that Iran is the only country in the region that, in addition to attacks by proxy forces, has directly attacked Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan.

He also called the Islamic Republic the main supporter of the Houthis and said that all of the region’s critical hotspots return to the Islamic Republic and the “hardline clerics” ruling Iran.

Rubio added: “If these hardline Shiite clerics did not exist in Iran, none of these problems would exist.” He said that to resolve instability and war in the Middle East, the party that creates them must be correctly identified and confronted, and that developments over the past few months have made this clear to the world.

In another part of the interview, Rubio said that Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury secretary, is putting Iran under severe pressure with sanctions.