Marco Rubio tells Al Jazeera it is crucial to destroy Iran’s missile and drone arsenal to prevent future strikes against its neighbours in the Middle East.

“I think the best way to stability — given the people who are in charge in Iran — is to destroy the ability of Iran in the future to launch these missiles and these drones against their infrastructure and civilian populations,” the US Secretary of State says.

“If you think about what they struck in the region — what has Iran gone after? It’s been energy infrastructure against countries that were not waging a war against them, but yet they went after these countries nonetheless,” Rubio adds.

“This is why they built these missiles and drones in the first place. But they’ve also attacked embassies [and] diplomatic facilities, which is unheard of. They’ve attacked airports, which is unheard of. This is what they’ve done, and this is a weakened Iran.”