Israel regards Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, as one of its closest friends. But on March 2, as the United States and Israel intensified their military campaign in Iran, he surprised Israel with a slip of the tongue, opening a Pandora’s box that set off an impassioned debate which may yet damage Israel’s image and interests.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, DC, Rubio suggested that Israel had pulled the United States into the current war.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,” he said in a reference to reports that Israel was primed to strike Iran after the failure of US-Iran talks on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. “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.”

When a reporter asked Rubio to clarify whether Israel had coaxed the United States into going to war with Iran, he 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,” he explained.

“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,” he added. “But this had to happen no matter what.”

Naturally, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reacted with glee to Rubio’s statements. In a social media post designed to sow division in the United States, he wrote, “Mr. Rubio admitted what we all knew: US has entered a war of choice on behalf of Israel. There was never any so-called Iranian ‘threat.’ Shedding of both American and Iranian blood is thus on Israel Firsters. American people deserve better and should take back their country.”

The following day, Rubio walked back his remarks. He said that President Donald Trump had determined that the threat posed by Iran in terms of its nuclear program, its arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones, and its support of regional allies like Hezbollah and Hamas constituted an imminent danger to the United States and its regional allies.

“The bottom line is this,” he told reporters. “The president determined we were not going to get hit first. It’s that simple, guys.”

Despite his attempt at damage control, American opponents of the war claimed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pressured Trump to declare war on Iran, to the United States’ detriment.

Vocal critics like the podcaster Tucker Carlson — a supporter of Trump who is close to Vice President JD Vance — allege that the United States has become subservient to Israel and should not have joined it in attacking Iran.

Carlson’ critique appears to be gaining ground within the ranks of the Make America Great faction of the Republican Party and among Democrats and left-wingers critical of the........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)