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Did Israel force Trump into war with Iran? After Marco Rubio suggests so, Israel’s critics erupt.
(JTA) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio inflamed critics of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran on Monday when he suggested that Israel had pulled the United States into the conflict.
“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, 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,” Rubio told reporters in Washington, D.C.
After a reporter asked Rubio to clarify whether the United States was forced to strike because of Israel’s plans, the secretary said no.
“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,” Rubio said. He added, “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.”
The comments were sensitive because allegations that the United States is subservient to Israel have gripped both the far right and far left in recent years.
And despite his clarification, Rubio’s first comment caught on among skeptics of the war from across the ideological spectrum.
“Secretary Rubio says the quiet part out loud: this is an unnecessary war of choice,” tweeted Rep. Sara Jacobs, a Jewish progressive from California. “Israel forced our hand – there was no imminent threat to the United States. And instead of talking Israel out of going to war, President Trump went along with it and put U.S. lives at risk.”
The conservative commentator Matt Walsh, meanwhile, shared a video of Rubio’s initial statement and tweeted, “So he’s 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.”
For their part, Trump and Netanyahu both reject the idea that the war serves Israel’s interests primarily or that Netanyahu had lured Trump into war.
“There are people that say, well, the prime minister of Israel dragged Donald Trump into it. And as someone who has been friends with him over 30 years, nobody drags Donald Trump into anything — but I want to get your reaction to that,” the Fox News host Sean Hannity asked Netanyahu on Monday night. He did not name anyone who had offered that criticism.
Netanyahu laughed, dismissing as “ridiculous” the allegation that he was controlling Trump.
“Donald Trump is the strongest leader in the world,” he said. “He does what he thinks is right for America. He does also what he thinks is right for future generations. … Iran is committed to your destruction. And whether people understand it or not, the leader has to understand it. Donald Trump understands it. You don’t have to drag him into anything. He does what he thinks is right, and this is right.”
Trump, meanwhile, told the New York Post on Monday that he believed that most Americans support the war, despite polling showing approval at well under 50%. He said he had made the decision to strike only after failed negotiations with the Iranians in Geneva on Thursday after learning that Iran was continuing to seek to produce nuclear weapons at a new site.
Still, Rubio was not the only prominent voice close to the decision-making table to implicate Israel as a driver of the war plans on Monday, amid a reckoning over what prompted Trump to engage U.S. forces in an expansive and increasingly deadly war without congressional approval, which is required by law except if there is a direct, imminent threat. On Tuesday, the U.S. military said the number of service members killed had risen to six.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said the United States had to prepare for war because it knew it would be embroiled if Israel acted alone. “Because Israel was determined to act with or without the U.S., our commander in chief and the administration and the officials had a very difficult decision to make,” he told reporters.
Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat who is on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that despite supporting Israel, he still had questions about the appropriateness of striking when there is no immediate threat to the United States. “This is still a war of choice that has been acknowledged by others that was dictated by Israel’s goals and timeline.”
And a New York Times post-mortem of Trump’s decision-making published on Monday suggests that last week he had conveyed to Tucker Carlson, a prominent critic of Israel, “that he had no choice but to join a strike that Israel would launch.” (Carlson visited the White House for a third time in weeks after igniting an antisemitism rift on the right by inviting the streamer Nick Fuentes onto his show; the Times article says that in all of the meetings, Carlson argued against an attack.)
The war is placing stress on Trump’s coalition ahead of a midterm election season that is expected to be rocky for the Republicans. The MAGA wing of the party, which embraces both criticism of Israel and opposition to U.S. intervention in foreign conflict, appears unlikely to be easily convinced by the Trump administration’s explanations for war.
“Trump betrayed MAGA and America First. He has lost his mandate to govern,” Fuentes tweeted after the war began. “I cannot and will not vote for the GOP unless they put America and Americans First. If you keep voting after they dragged us into a regional war with Iran, then you will vote for absolutely anything.”
The post Did Israel force Trump into war with Iran? After Marco Rubio suggests so, Israel’s critics erupt. appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel Expands Iran Strikes as Tehran Moves to Name New Supreme Leader
People stand near a destroyed vehicle as smoke rises after a reported strike on Shahran fuel tanks, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 8, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Israeli forces expanded their bombardment of Iran overnight, striking fuel depots near Tehran, while Bahrain said an Iranian attack had damaged one of its desalination plants, signaling a widening assault on vital infrastructure across the region.
As fighting escalated on day nine of the US-Israeli campaign against Iran, Tehran moved closer to naming a new supreme leader after the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with every indication suggesting his powerful son Mojtaba could take charge.
Israel’s military threatened to kill any replacement for Khamenei, while US President Donald Trump said the war might only end once Iran’s military and rulers had been wiped out.
BLACK SMOKE HANGS OVER TEHRAN
Thick, choking black smoke hung over Tehran on Sunday, residents said, after strikes on oil storage facilities had lit up the night sky with plumes of orange flame.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said the large-scale attack marked a “dangerous new phase” of the conflict and amounted to a war crime.
“By targeting fuel depots, the aggressors are releasing hazardous materials and toxic substances into the air, poisoning civilians, devastating the environment, and endangering lives on a massive scale,” he wrote on X.
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told reporters the depots were used to fuel Iran’s war effort, including producing or storing propellant for ballistic missiles. “They are a legal military target,” he said.
Shortly after the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government would press on with the assault and strike Iran’s rulers “without mercy.”
“We have an organized plan with many surprises to destabilize the regime and enable change,” he said in a video statement. “We have many more targets.”
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that he was not interested in negotiating an end to the conflict that has sent energy prices skyward, hurt business and snarled global travel.
“At some point, I don’t think there will be anybody left maybe to say, ‘We surrender,’” Trump said.
IRANIAN DRONES STRIKE GULF STATES
The governments of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain reported Iranian drone attacks in their countries on Saturday and early Sunday, with a huge fire engulfing a government office block in Kuwait.
Kuwait’s interior ministry said two of its officers were killed “while performing duties,” while the UAE said four migrant workers had died in Iranian attacks there so far.
Showing the intensity of the offensive, the UAE said air defense teams had knocked out 16 ballistic missiles and 113 drones fired towards the Gulf state on Sunday. One missile fell in the sea and four drones hit the country’s territories.
Bahrain said on Sunday that an Iranian drone attack had caused “material damage” to a desalination plant, though the country’s electricity and water authority said the strike had not disrupted water supplies.
It was the first time an Arab country has said Iran targeted a desalination facility during the conflict. On Saturday, Iran said a US attack had struck a freshwater desalination plant on its Qeshm Island, disrupting water supplies in 30 villages, calling it “a dangerous move with grave consequences.”
Saudi Arabia has told Tehran that continued Iranian attacks on the kingdom and its energy sector could push Riyadh to respond in kind, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Lebanon has also been pulled into the conflict after the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah launched rockets and drones into Israel last week, with nearly 400 people killed by Israel over the past week, the health ministry said.
Israel killed at least four people when it struck a hotel in central Beirut on Sunday, saying it had targeted Iranian commanders operating in the city — the first such strike on the heart of the Lebanese capital — amid heavy bombardment of the southern suburbs and the country’s south and east.
IRAN GETTING CLOSER TO NAMING A NEW LEADER
The clerical body charged with choosing Iran’s next supreme leader could meet as soon as Sunday to name a successor to Khamenei, who was killed in an attack early in the conflict, Iranian media reported.
A majority consensus over the successor has more or less been reached, said Assembly of Experts member Ayatollah Mohammad Mehdi Mirbaqeri, according to the Mehr news agency.
Another member of the council, Ayatollah Mohsen Heidari Alekasir, said in a video that a candidate had been selected based on Khamenei’s guidance that Iran’s top leader should be “hated by the enemy.”
Two Iranian sources told Reuters last week that the clear favorite was Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who amassed power under his father as a senior figure in the security forces and the vast business empire they control. Choosing him would signal that hardliners remain firmly in charge.
Trump has justified the biggest US military operation in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq by saying Tehran posed an imminent threat to the United States, without providing evidence. He has also said Iran was too close to being able to build a nuclear weapon.
The US and Israel have discussed sending special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium at a later stage of the war, Axios reported, citing four people with knowledge of the discussions.
Asked on Saturday about sending ground troops to secure nuclear sites, Trump said it was something they could do “later on.”
The US-Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,332 Iranian civilians and wounded thousands, according to Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani.
Iranian attacks have killed 10 people in Israel. At least six US service members have been killed, with Iran saying on Sunday it had struck US bases in Kuwait. Israel said on Sunday that two of its soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon.
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Iran Has Lost Nearly 70% of Its Missile Launch Capabilities
An Iranian missile is launched during a military exercise in an undisclosed location in Iran, Aug. 20, 2025. Photo: Iranian Army/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Iran has reportedly suffered a significant reduction in its missile launch capabilities since the start of the military campaign.
According to information broadcast Saturday evening by Israeli public broadcaster Kan, a large portion of Iran’s missile launch systems have been destroyed or disabled during ongoing strikes carried out by Israel and the United States.
Estimates suggest that roughly 70% of Iran’s missile launchers have been either destroyed or rendered inoperable since the beginning of the offensive. Prior to the campaign, intelligence assessments indicated that Iran possessed approximately 420 missile launchers. Current estimates now place the number of operational systems at around 100.
Reports indicate that about 150 launchers were completely destroyed in precision strikes, while another 150 were damaged in air attacks, leaving them temporarily unusable. Some of the damaged launch systems are believed to have been moved into underground facilities, preventing their immediate deployment.
Despite these losses, military operations are continuing with the objective of further weakening Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities.
The broader military campaign has entered its eighth day. The strikes are targeting not only missile launch platforms but also wider military infrastructure and institutions linked to the Iranian regime.
According to the report, the campaign is being coordinated between Israel and the United States, with each focusing on different operational zones across Iran.
Israel is primarily targeting missile launch sites in western Iran, which are viewed as posing a direct threat to Israeli territory.
US forces are concentrating their strikes in southern Iran, where missile launches have previously targeted Gulf states and American military bases in the region.
The ongoing air campaign is part of a broader strategy aimed at permanently degrading Iran’s offensive missile capabilities and limiting its capacity to carry out long-range strikes across the Middle East.
Military operations remain active, and regional tensions continue to run high as the conflict enters its second week.
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Two Israeli Soldiers Killed in Southern Lebanon, Israel Military Says
The late Master Sergeant Maher Khatar, 38. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
i24 News – The Israel Defense Forces announced that Master Sergeant Maher Khatar, 38, from Majdal Shams, was killed during combat operations in southern Lebanon. Khatar served in the Combat Engineering Corps in the 91st Division.
The IDF said another soldier was also killed in the incident, though the name has not yet been cleared for publication. In addition, one combat officer was lightly injured and was evacuated to a hospital for medical treatment. The officer’s family has been notified, the military said.
According to the military, Khatar fell during an overnight incident in which missiles were fired toward IDF soldiers operating in the area.
The troops were attempting to retrieve a broken vehicle from a position in southern Lebanon when the attack occurred. The specific type of missiles used in the strike has not yet been determined, officials said.
Immediately following the attack, Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck multiple targets in the area, while Israeli forces carried out heavy fire against positions linked to the attack, according to a military official.
The IDF said its forces remain deployed in forward defensive positions along the northern front in order to protect residents of northern Israel. Military officials said regional divisions are conducting ongoing situational assessments and remain prepared for potential escalation.
“The IDF will continue to operate with force and determination to prevent enemy attacks and eliminate any threat posed to the State of Israel and its residents,” a military official said. The army added that it shares the family’s grief and will continue to support them.