Washington, DC – On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio provided a looping justification for the US launching a war against Iran: Israel was planning to strike Iran, which would have prompted Tehran to strike the US assets in the region, requiring Washington to launch preemptive strikes on Iran.
Even as the administration of US President Donald Trump has sought to roll back claims made by several officials in recent days, they have continued to spark dismay across the political spectrum.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
Rubio’s statement was particularly notable, given the assessment by many Iran analysts that the US-Israel war, which has led to regional retaliation from Iran, serves the interests not of Washington, but of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Washington is seen as having outsized leverage over Israel, to which it has provided more than $300bn in military aid since 1948, including $21bn during Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Trump, when asked about Rubio’s statement on Tuesday, appeared to offer a different characterisation, saying he launched the war because he “thought we were going to have a situation where we were going to be attacked”.
“They [Iran] were getting ready to attack Israel. They were gonna attack others,” he said.
The US president has spent the days since launching the initial strikes on Saturday arguing that the holistic threat posed by Iran justified the US-Israeli strikes, a position that experts say likely stands in contravention of both US and international law. The administration has provided scant evidence of a planned attack on US assets or that either Iran’s nuclear or ballistic programmes offered an immediate threat.
Rubio on Monday also sought to distance himself from his statements, claiming his words had been taken out of context.
Rubio had, in earlier comments, pointed to the broader threat posed by Iran, including its ballistic missile and drone capacity. But then he turned to what he called the question of “why now?”
“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,” he told reporters. “We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”
‘Stunning admission’
The shifting messaging on Tuesday was unlikely to allay the condemnation from Trump critics and supporters alike, including several influential figures within Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) base.
Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, told Al Jazeera that “what he’s basically publicly acknowledging would be that the United States was entrapped by the Israelis”.
“The notion that the Israelis were going to do it anyway, and so we had to do it as well – if that’s the case, then there’s a really serious conversation to be had here in the United States about US and Israeli interests, and where those are aligned and where they diverge,” Grieco said.
Kenneth Roth, a former executive director of Human Rights Watch, in a post on X, questioned: “Why is it in America’s interest to arm and fund Israel to draw America into an unnecessary war?”
In an earlier post, he said Rubio’s logic “isn’t even close to a legal rationale” for launching the war.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), meanwhile, called Rubio’s words on Monday a “stunning admission”.
In a statement, it said Rubio had revealed “what was clear from the start: the United States did not attack Iran because Iran posed an imminent threat to our nation. We attacked under pressure from Israel for Israel’s benefit”.
The organisation called on Congress to pass war powers resolutions to rein in Trump’s ability to wage war.
Looming war powers vote
Lawmakers have pledged to introduce the legislation in both the House of Representatives and Senate this week, although it is likely to face an uphill battle amid Republican opposition.
Trump’s party maintains razor-thin majorities in both chambers, and most Republican lawmakers have rallied behind the war and the reasons the administration has given for launching attacks.
War powers resolutions would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override a presidential veto, although advocates have long argued they offer an opportunity for lawmakers to put their stance on the record.
In a statement on Tuesday, progressive US Senator Bernie Sanders was among the lawmakers condemning the administration’s war.
“Netanyahu wanted war with Iran. Trump just gave it to him,” Sanders said.
The Israeli prime minister has, for more than two decades, called for the toppling of Iran’s government, and has been a leading opponent to diplomacy related to Iran’s nuclear programme.
During that time, Netanyahu has repeatedly pushed claims that Iran was on the immediate precipice of developing a nuclear weapon.
“American foreign and military policy must be determined by the American people,” Sanders wrote. “Not the right-wing extremist Netanyahu government.”
Thomas Massie, a Republican representative who has spearheaded the war powers push, connected Rubio’s statement to Trump’s “America First” pledges to prioritise domestic issues in the US.
“Before it’s over, the price of gas, groceries, and virtually everything else is going to go up,” Massie posted on X. “The only winners in [the US] are defence company shareholders.”
‘Worst possible thing he could have said’
Several influential figures in Trump’s MAGA base said Rubio’s statements were further inflaming the growing discontent over the war.
Daily Wire podcaster Matt Walsh said Rubio was “flat out telling us that we’re in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand. This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said.”
Responding to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s reiteration of Rubio’s claims, former congressman and Trump attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz said: “In making these statements, which are undeniably true, America looks like such a supplicant.”
Pro-Trump brothers Keith and Kevin Hodge, who run the influential pro-Trump X account HodgeTwins, with 3.5 million followers, also decried the administration’s actions.
“We did not vote for send[ing] Americans to die for Israel’s wars,” they posted on Tuesday. “We won’t stay silent about this.”
Ali Harb contributed reporting.
