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By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com
Adding to the mixed messaging coming from the Trump administration regarding the war with Iran, President Trump suggested on Tuesday that he may have “forced Israel’s hand” when the conflict started.
The president was responding to a question about Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said on Monday that one reason why the US launched the war on Saturday was that Israel was planning to attack and that the US assessed Iran could respond with attacks. on US bases.
Senior Trump officials said the same thing during classified briefings with members of Congress on Monday, which was confirmed by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and other lawmakers. “Because Israel was determined to act with or without the US, our commander in chief and the administration and the officials [in the Cabinet] had a very difficult decision to make. They had to evaluate the threats to the US, to our troops, to our installations, to our assets in the region in beyond,” Johnson said.
The narrative that Israel was ready to act alone has holes in it, considering Israel has relied on US air defenses to intercept Iranian missiles in previous conflicts, and POLITICO reported a few days before the war started that Trump officials thought it might be better for the “politics” if Israel attacked on its own at first, provoking Iranian attacks on US assets to justify US intervention.
After Rubio’s comments drew significant backlash, the administration appears to be changing its story. In a post on X, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared an article from the National Review titled “No, Marco Rubio Didn’t Claim That Israel Dragged Trump into War with Iran.”
Speaking to reporters again on Tuesday, Rubio said that Israel’s plans to attack Iran were only related to the timing of when the war started and that the president had already made a decision to start the war to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile program.
Trump claimed on Tuesday that he believed Iran “might attack first,” though Pentagon officials told congressional staff on Sunday that Iran wasn’t planning to attack US assets unless Israel attacked first.
“Based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they were going to attack first. And I didn’t want that to happen. So, if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand. But Israel was ready, and we were ready,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
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Dave DeCamp
Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.