Secretary of State Marco Rubio's claims that the U.S. was under an "imminent threat" prompting American military strikes in Iran came into question Monday.
Rubio told reporters the Iranian military was growing its nuclear weapons program and planning to launch attacks against America, its assets in the Middle East, and its allies in the region — namely Israel. In the days since, Rubio said Iran has attacked civilian areas in the Middle East in retaliatory strikes since the attacks started Saturday.
"There absolutely was an imminent threat," Rubio told reporters Monday afternoon in Washington, D.C.
People were critical of Rubio and the Trump administration amid the conflicting information around the military actions.
"So now the 'imminent threat' was that Iran would hit back after being attacked by Israel? That’s why the US launched this devastating war and plunged the region into chaos — instead of pressuring its closest ally not to attack in the first place.
Impressive logic: start a war to stop the retaliation you expect from starting a war. That’s a very creative definition of 'imminent threat,'" Ghida Fakhry, producer and host of TRTWorld, wrote on X.
"The whole thing is dishonest as hell but if you take them at their word: 1) the imminent threat was created by Israel's attack on Iran 2) they say Israel made that attack using U.S. intelligence 3) Trump said he authorized the attack They admit to creating their own pretext!" Aaron Fritschner, Rep. Don Beyer's (R-VA) deputy chief of staff, wrote on X.
"Netanyahu got what he wanted but what about the American people? What about the service members who died? What about the nearly 200 schoolchildren killed? There's a reason why past presidents didn’t go to war with Iran: they refused to risk American lives to open Pandora’s Box," Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) wrote on X.
"There was no imminent threat to the United States by the Iranians. There was a threat to Israel. If we equate a threat to Israel as the equivalent of an imminent threat to the US, then we are in uncharted territory," Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said in an interview with reporters, which was shared by journalist Aaron Rupar on X.
"This is the most insane and absurd definition of an ‘imminent threat’ I have ever heard in my life. Our ally and proxy, Israel, that we arm and fund, was about to illegally attack Iran so we joined in the attack because that illegal attack would have led to an attack on us," journalist and editor-in-chief of Zeteo Mehdi Hasan wrote on X.