Marco Rubio says US followed Israel into attacking Iran – whose war is it? | News World

Americans across the political spectrum are outraged after the US Secretary of State revealed the US only attacked Iran when learning Israel was planning an attack.

Briefing a gaggle of Congressional leaders on the joint US-Israeli offensive, Marco Rubio said fears of an ‘imminent threat’ to US troops prompted them to hitch military motion Israel had planned.

‘The approaching threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they’d be attacked, that they’d immediately come after us, and we weren’t going to sit down there and absorb a blow before we responded,’ he said.

‘We went proactively in a defensive strategy to prevent them from inflicting more serious damage. Had we not done so, there would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to occur, and we didn’t act preemptively to stop more casualties and more lack of life.’

Rubio’s explanation of why the US joined what could turn into a lengthy war within the Middle East has sparked fury from each Republicans and Democrats, who suggested the US is in a war because Israel ‘forced our hand’.

Despite this, Rubio doubled down on his remarks, saying the operation ‘needed to occur’ a method or one other.

The American public is ‘fatigued’ by conflict

Dr Bamo Nouri, senior lecturer in International Relations on the University of West London, told Metro that claims of danger from an ‘imminent’ threat to justify war are something Americans are conversant in.

‘After Iraq and Afghanistan, many citizens are wary of pre-emptive logic that may feel elastic once events are in motion. The frustration we’re seeing isn’t simply an anti-intervention reflex; it reflects a deeper fatigue and a requirement for a better bar before force is used,’ he said.

Dr Katayoun Shahandeh, senior teaching fellow on the University of London, told Metro that Rubio’s argument that Iran would have attacked American troops anyway allows the administration to pose the strikes as anticipatory self-defence reasonably than escalation.

She added: ‘Tensions between the US and Iran have been constructing for months – through troop repositioning within the region, heightened alert levels, increasingly forceful rhetoric, and closer coordination with Israel.

‘But there is evident war-weariness amongst many Americans after many years of involvement within the Middle East.

‘Even voters who support a powerful national defence are cautious about being drawn into one other prolonged regional conflict. So, when military motion is described as pre-emptive, but appears to follow months of mounting tension, it will probably trigger scepticism.’

Who’s driving the escalation within the Middle East?

Dr. Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, a professor in global thought and comparative studies at SOAS, University of London and creator of What’s Iran? told Metro that Rubio’s statement was nothing but ‘primitive propaganda’.

‘There was no imminent threat. Iran and the US were in the midst of diplomatic negotiations to resolve the nuclear issue. Iran has not attacked any country for 3 centuries,’ he said.

‘This war is an Israeli ploy to subdue Iran. The Trump administration has been too weak politically to face up to the Israeli demands. That’s one in all the actual causes of this war, and anyone who studied this region and US foreign policies towards it knows this.’

Dr Shahandeh told Metro the US-Israel relationship can be under intense scrutiny as of late, provided that the strikes have been coordinated closely with Israel.

‘For some Americans, the priority is just not in regards to the alliance itself – support for Israel stays significant – but about strategic autonomy.

‘Americans don’t want the US to seem as if it’s reacting to Israel’s timetable or being pulled right into a conflict dynamic set by one other government.’

For Republicans, this forms in the best way of ‘America First’ support, which in turn, shows scepticism about foreign entanglements.

For Democrats, it’s an increasing wariness of aligning with Israeli military strategy robotically.

Dr Shahandeh added: ‘In each cases, the anxiety is about whether US motion is clearly and independently anchored in American national interests.

When Trump took office for the second time and promised voters an end to ‘ceaselessly wars’, Americans assumed this meant exhausting diplomatic channels and only using military motion for immediate threats, Dr Nouri added.

What makes this time much more fiery is that the road between the old playbook and the brand new ‘American First’ rhetoric is muddied, he said.

‘For a public already sceptical of overseas commitments, the query isn’t just whether the intelligence was sound,’ Dr Nouri explained.

‘It’s whether this marks a mandatory defensive move – or the opening chapter of one other escalating cycle within the Middle East.’

Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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