A large cadre of commentators have been arguing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dragged President Donald Trump unwillingly into war with Iran. At first blush, this theory received a boost from comments made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday. But listening to Rubio’s full comments in context, it’s pretty clear that he wasn’t actually advancing this theory. 

Judge Cannon’s Flawed Order to Suppress Jack Smith’s Report on the Mar-a-Lago Documents Caper

The Dog That Isn’t Barking in Iran

Trump Predicts More U.S. Casualties in Iran War

In his remarks, Rubio made two main points. One was about the purpose of the war against Iran, which he said was to eliminate their ballistic missile threat, their attack drones, and the threat their Navy poses to global shipping. He then said, “The second question I’ve been asked is, why now?” 

In answering this question, Rubio said, “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.”

This is the clip that is being taken as proof that he’s saying that Netanyahu forced........

© National Review