America's war: Israel did not make Trump do it

In the history of military conflict, few are the aggressors who have ever fessed up to deliberately launching a war of choice. Just about every unprovoked bombing campaign has been launched in self-defense, every invasion the product of a decision made by someone else.

So it was Monday, when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that the United States' March 1 attack on Iran was compelled by a chain of events outside of its control. Israel, he argued, was going to strike the Islamic Republic anyway.

"The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked — and we believed they would be attacked — they would immediately come after us," Rubio told reporters ahead of a classified briefing with members of Congress. "We were aware of Israeli intentions ... and understood what that would mean for us and had to be prepared to act as a result of it," he continued, remarks that came after Trump administration officials conceded a day prior that there was otherwise no imminent threat from the Iranian regime.

This claim has been taken, in some quarters — on both the anti-imperialist left and neo-Nazi right — as an admission that America's ally, Israel, is a rogue state that has manipulated its chief benefactor into a transgression of U.S. and international law; that a nation of less than 10 million people dictates the foreign policy of a global hegemon.

This is a politically convenient narrative for antisemites, of course, but its adoption is not limited to those just looking for an easy excuse to blame the Jews.

"We signed up to defend the United States," Fred Wellman, a military veteran and Democratic candidate for Congress, posted on social media. "Not be mercenaries for Netanyahu and the murderous Saudi regime."

In this way, American innocence is preserved and critiques of President Donald Trump can take on a populist, nationalist veneer. The administration has sold us out to foreigners who do not have our best interests at heart. It's "America First" but from the left of center.

The obvious problem is that it is simply not true, and those treating Rubio's remarks as a gaffe are falling for propaganda.

On Feb. 25, Politico reported that this ostensibly critical narrative was just the one favored by those who decided to start a war without the consent of Congress and without even bothering to make a public case.

"Senior advisers to President Donald Trump would prefer Israel strike Iran before the United States launches an assault on the country," the outlet reported, citing two sources familiar with the discussions. "These Trump administration officials are privately arguing that an Israeli attack would trigger Iran to retaliate, helping muster support from American voters for a U.S. strike."

The U.S. wasn't compelled to act by a reckless and intransigent ally, in this telling, but hoping that Israel would move first so it could publicly claim its hand was forced.

There is also the problem that the opening strike on Iran, reported as a joint U.S.-Israeli operation that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was carried out based on information provided by the CIA, "which learned that the supreme leader would be meeting in Tehran on Saturday [Feb. 28]," according to ABC News. "The United States had high confidence in the intelligence and the attack was shifted to its eventual timing on Saturday morning, the source said."

The opening salvo had been planned for exactly one week earlier, per Axios, but was delayed "for operational and intelligence reasons." Israeli and U.S. officials cited by the outlet gave differing explanations for that delay, from bad weather to allowing time for more negotiations between Tehran and Washington — the key disagreement: whether those talks were simply a ruse — but if there is evidence that Tel Aviv would have been willing to go it alone, it isn't there.

That is, indeed, the problem with the narrative suggested by Rubio and some of the administration's critics: Israel would not and could not have gone it alone, at least not if it knew there would be real financial, military and diplomatic consequences — imposed by the most powerful nation on earth, one perfectly capable of punishing governments that defy it.

If the Trump administration wanted to stave off an Israeli attack, it could have, in ways public and private; it decided, instead, to carry out the largest military buildup in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, another U.S. war of choice. The U.S. relationship with Israel should be viewed critically, but let us not forget the power dynamic: whether it is launching a war or facilitating a genocide, American presidents should be made to own their choices.