Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted Tuesday that he was misunderstood one day prior when he said the US attacked Iran on Saturday because “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action” that would “precipitate an attack against American forces.”
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Rubio walked back his prior statements after President Trump flatly denied that Israel chose the timing of the attack — maintaining in an Oval Office pool spray hours earlier, as he had in interviews, that he chose to attack after unsuccessful US-Iran talks Thursday in Geneva.
“This was a question of timing, of why this had to happen as a joint operation, not the question of the intent,” Rubio sought to clarify Tuesday.
“The president made a decision that negotiations were not going to work, that they were playing us on the negotiations and that this was a threat that was untenable. The decision was made to strike them.”
Pressed by reporters on whether Israel set the timeframe, Rubio said, “This weekend presented a unique opportunity to take joint action against this threat.”
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Asked again to clarify, he said, “The president had already made a decision to act. On the timing, the president acted on the timing that gave us the highest chance of success.”
On Monday, Rubio said that the US struck on Saturday because Israel was going to do it anyways, putting US troops at risk.
“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 and perhaps even higher those killed,” Rubio said Monday.
“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.”