Secretary of State Marco Rubio has had the unenviable task of justifying another American war in the Middle East in the days since the American strike on Iran.

The subject of whether U.S. intelligence has verified that Iran's Supreme Leader ordered the creation of a nuclear weapon was a point of contention between Rubio and CBS interviewer Margaret Brennan. Rubio brushed off Brennan's query as "irrelevant," as The New York Post reported.

Brennan inquired of Rubio on Face the Nation Sunday as to whether or not the US had "intelligence that the Supreme Leader had ordered weaponization" of the uranium.

Why It Doesn't Matter

Rubio, who is also the National Security Advisor, shot back, saying it didn't matter if the Supreme Leader had issued the order or not because the regime was already looking into nuclear weapons.

“That’s irrelevant. I see that question being asked in the media all the time. That’s an irrelevant question. They have everything they need to build a weapon,” Rubio said.

While CBS's anchor insisted that the question of whether weaponization had been officially ordered was the "key point" in US intelligence assessments, Rubio vehemently disagreed.

Obvious answer

“Why would you bury things in a mountain, 300 feet under the ground? Why would they have 60% enriched uranium? You don’t need 60% enriched uranium," Rubio asked rhetorically.

"The only countries in the world that have uranium at 60% are countries that have nuclear weapons, because it can quickly make it 90. They have all the elements. Why do they have a space program? Is Iran going to go to the moon? No. They’re trying to build an ICBM so they can one day put a warhead on it,” Rubio responded.

Brennan brought up the March congressional testimony of National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, who had said that Iran had not given the directive to build a nuclear weapon.

The host wanted to know if Rubio had heard anything new from the US intelligence community since Gabbard's testimony took place.

Misrepresentation of fact

Rubio accused Brennan of misrepresenting the whole idea, saying, “That’s an inaccurate representation of it. That’s not how intelligence is read. That’s now how intelligence is used."

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently found that Iran was not fulfilling its nuclear nonproliferation commitments, according to Rubio. The presence of uranium traces at undeclared nuclear installations could not be explained by Iran, according to the conclusions of the IAEA.

“The Board of Governors… finds that Iran’s many failures to uphold its obligations since 2019 to provide the Agency with full and timely cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared locations in Iran … constitutes non-compliance with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement with the Agency,” the report said.

In the interview, Rubio added: “They have the delivery mechanisms, they have the enrichment capability, they have the highly enriched uranium that is stored. That’s all we need to see. Especially in the hands of a regime that’s already involved in terrorism and proxies and all kinds of things around. They are the source of all instability in the Middle East.”