Rubio says the US attacked Iran out of fear it would retaliate for the Israeli attack

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday offered a new explanation from the Trump administration on why the US decided to take military action against Iran now – saying the threat from Iran was “imminent” because the country knew it would retaliate against the US if it were attacked, including by Israel.

He spoke to reporters before briefing the gang of eight congressional leaders on Capitol Hill.

“There was definitely an imminent threat,” Rubio said. “And the immediate threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they were going to be attacked, they were going to come after us immediately, and we were not going to sit around and take a hit before we responded.”

Shortly after the briefing, House Speaker Mike Johnson backed Rubio’s new rationale, saying the consequences would have been staggering if the US had not attacked at the same time as Israel.

Rubio said the US knew how Iran would respond.

“It was very clear that if Iran was attacked by anyone – the United States or Israel or whoever – they would respond and react against the United States. The orders were delegated to the field commanders.” he said. “It was automatic.”

He said Iran’s almost immediate retaliation had proven his point, saying missiles were “pre-positioned” to attack before the first strike on the leadership complex.

“If we kept waiting for that attack to happen first before we hit them, we would suffer many more casualties.” Rubio continued. “We knew there was going to be an Israeli move. We knew it would provoke an attack on American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer more casualties.”

But Rubio denied that Israel had pressured the Trump administration – saying US military action would have been necessary eventually.

“No matter what happened, ultimately this operation had to happen. That’s the question why now,” he said, referring to the impending Israeli attack. “But this operation had to be done.”