How Israel ‘Chain-Ganged’ The Trump Administration Into War Against Iran
After several days of shifting and sometimes contradictory justifications from the Trump administration for why it launched a war against Iran over the weekend, Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday finally gave the real reason: Israel forced us into it.
“It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the U.S. or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond against the United States,” Rubio said. But later he added this: “We knew there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew 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 and perhaps even higher numbers of those killed. And then we would all be answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act.”
Later in the day, Speaker Mike Johnson said pretty much the same thing, that, “This was a defensive measure … If Israel fired upon Iran and took action against Iran to take out the missiles, then [Iran] would have immediately retaliated against U.S. personnel and assets.”
These remarks from Rubio and Johnson would seem to confirm recent reporting from the New York Times, which published a lengthy account Monday chronicling how President Trump decided to go to war. The article opens with this line: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel walked into the Oval Office on the morning of Feb. 11, determined to keep the American president on the path to war.” It goes on to explain that amid weeks of U.S.-Israeli planning for war, Trump administration officials had begun negotiating with Tehran over the future of its nuclear program, “and the Israeli leader wanted to make sure that the new diplomatic effort did not undermine the plans.”
Netanyahu, who has been candid about his decades-long desire to draw the United States into a war against Iran, was successful in this effort. The diplomatic talks with Iran faltered and Trump gave the go-ahead to launch strikes that immediately took out Tehran’s entire leadership, effectively bringing about a decapitation of the regime.
Why did it happen? Not necessarily because of our decisions, but because of Israel’s. According to the Times’ reporting, just hours before President Trump’s State of the Union address last Tuesday, Rubio and John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, briefed congressional leaders from the so-called Gang of Eight about ongoing negotiations with Iran and the possibility of strikes if those talks failed. “In the briefing, Mr. Rubio argued that, no matter if Israel or the United States struck first, Iran would respond with a powerful barrage of weapons against U.S. bases and embassies. It was logical then, Mr. Rubio said, that the United States should act in concert with Israel, since America would be dragged in anyway. And Israel, Mr. Rubio said, was determined to act.” (Read more from “How Israel ‘Chain-Ganged’ The Trump Administration Into War Against Iran” HERE)
Photo credit: Flickr
