WASHINGTON

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday admitted that the US struck Iran over the weekend in an effort to move before Tehran could respond to an expected Israeli attack.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew 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,” Rubio said.

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill before briefing the Gang of Eight — the four congressional leaders and the heads of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees — Rubio defended the joint US-Israeli airstrikes as necessary to prevent greater losses.

“There absolutely was an imminent threat,” he said, referring to Iran’s missile capabilities and what he described as plans to target American bases and allies in the region.

“We knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed it would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded,” he said.

He said the Defense Department had warned that waiting for Iran to strike first would result in “more casualties and more deaths,” arguing that the US “went proactively in a defensive way” to prevent higher damage.
According to media reports, however, Pentagon officials told congressional staff in closed-door briefings Sunday there was no intelligence indicating Iran planned to attack US forces first.

Rubio said the purpose of the US attacks is to destroy Iran’s missile capability as well as the “threat” posed by its navy to global shipping, and warned that further escalation is likely.

“I’m not going to give away the details of our tactical efforts, but the hardest hits are yet to come from the US military. The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now,” he said.
“How long will it take? I don’t know how long it will take. We have objectives. We will do this as long as it takes.”

Israel earlier announced that it launched what it called a “preemptive” attack against Iran early Saturday under the name “Operation Lion’s Roar,” declaring a “special and immediate” state of emergency across the country.
The strikes came as talks between Washington and Tehran over Iran’s nuclear program had been ongoing under Oman’s mediation, with a new round in Geneva ending Thursday.

According to The New York Times, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed President Donald Trump to “strike a decisive blow” against Iran and not allow renewed nuclear diplomacy with Tehran to derail plans for military action.