"I think we are all seeing right now the threat this clerical regime poses to the region and to the world. They are trying to hold the world hostage," Rubio said at an event at the State Department.

"They are attacking neighboring countries, their energy infrastructure, their civilian population," he said.

"The objective of this mission is to destroy their ability to continue to do that, and we are well on our way to achieving that."

The United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28 and promptly killed the Islamic republic's longtime supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Since then, Iran has fired off a barrage of missiles and drones on Israel and on Gulf Arab monarchies, which are key bases for US forces.

Rubio was speaking at an event to honor wrongfully detained Americans and hostages. He was joined by family members of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who disappeared in 2007 on the Iranian island of Kish.

The United States concluded in 2020 that the Iranian government was involved in his presumed death.

Levinson was said to be on a mission to investigate cigarette counterfeiting, although The Washington Post reported in 2013 that he had been working with the CIA and had gone on a rogue mission to gather intelligence.

Levinson is "particularly a reminder of the nature of the regime that we're dealing with in Tehran," Rubio said.

"They were founded, unfortunately, on an assault on the brave men and women of our foreign and civil service," Rubio said, referring to the taking of hostages at the US embassy in Tehran by Islamic zealots after they toppled the US-aligned shah in 1979.