Politics

A curious thing happened the day after Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military to attack Iran: None of the administration’s most senior officials appeared on any Sunday talk shows to defend the joint offensive with Israel, or make the case for why Americans should support the campaign. It was especially surprising given how much Trump — who campaigned against “endless” wars — seemed to be struggling to justify the extraordinary decision to authorize dozens of airstrikes across Iran, including the one that wiped out the country’s longtime leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

By Monday afternoon, it was clear why no one had raised their hand for the job: There isn’t a convincing rationale for why the United States needed to go to war with Iran right now.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking to reporters that afternoon, was the first Cabinet official to shed light on the timing and motivation for the attacks: “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action [against Iran]. … We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

In other words: The U.S. went to war with Iran — a war that has cost the lives of more than a hundred school innocent children and at least six U.S. service members in its first few days — because Israel forced its hand.