Apparently, the imminent threat of Israel attacking Iran was what started it all.
Source: Jerusalem Post
Planned Israeli action against Iran that would have seen retaliation against American forces prompted the United States to launch its weekend strikes against Tehran, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday evening.
“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that they 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,” Rubio told reporters.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi responded to Rubio’s statements in a social media post, saying: “Mr. Rubio admitted what we all knew: US has entered a war of choice on behalf of Israel. There was never any so-called Iranian ‘threat.'”
Pretty straightforward, right? Well, not so fast.
Perhaps realizing the extent of Rubio’s screw-up, the White House sprang into action, even enlisting the National Review to explain what he meant by that and give full context.
This is the clip that is being taken as proof that Rubio said that Netanyahu forced the U.S. into war. But those making this argument are conflating the question “Why?” with the question “Why now?” In fact, if you watch the full press conference, Rubio makes this clear. At about the five-minute mark, he is asked explicitly whether he was saying that the U.S. was forced to attack Iran because of an impending Israeli action, and he responds “no.” He goes on to say:
That’s the question of why now, but this operation needed to happen because Iran, in about a year or a year and a half, would cross the line of immunity, meaning they would have so many short range missiles, so many drones, that no one could do anything about it, because they could hold the whole world hostage. Look at the damage they’re doing now. And this is a weakened Iran. Imagine a year from now. So that had to happen. Obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us, and we had to be prepared to act as a result of it. But this had to happen, no matter what.
This is ridiculous. And why you don’t put such people in charge of national security.
