{"id":2575758,"date":"2026-03-03T19:03:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T00:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rubio-says-u-s-involvement-in-iran-was-triggered-by-israeli-attack-plans-we-were-not-going-to-sit-there\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T19:05:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T00:05:45","slug":"rubio-says-u-s-involvement-in-iran-was-triggered-by-israeli-attack-plans-we-were-not-going-to-sit-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/rubio-says-u-s-involvement-in-iran-was-triggered-by-israeli-attack-plans-we-were-not-going-to-sit-there\/","title":{"rendered":"Rubio Says U.S. Involvement in Iran Was Triggered by Israeli Attack Plans: &#8216;We Were Not Going to Sit There&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">38<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Frubio-says-u-s-involvement-in-iran-was-triggered-by-israeli-attack-plans-we-were-not-going-to-sit-there%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2575758&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In statements posted by the State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued that the United States attacked Iran too prevent being prey to Iranian aggression, describing the choice as predator or prey. He said Israel\u2019s actions would likely provoke Iranian retaliation against American forces, and a preemptive strike was necessary to avoid higher casualties and losses.<\/p>\n<p>Rubio warned of an imminent threat, arguing that Iran would strike first if attacked and that waiting would lead to more deaths. He cited DoD assessments claiming that delaying a response would increase casualties,and he highlighted Iran\u2019s growing conventional missile and drone capacity\u2014producing about 100 missiles per month,far outpacing interceptor production,and possessing thousands of drones. He described Iran as already attacking airports, hotels, and embassies, and argued that the regime is led by radical clerics whose decisions are driven by theology. The purpose of Operation Epic Fury, Rubio said, is to eliminate the threat posed by Iran\u2019s short-range missiles and its navy, rather than to <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >pursue broader regime change<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<section> \t\t\t\t<script>console.log(\"ad slot (AC1)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC1)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC2)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC3)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC4)\")<\/script><\/p>\n<p>America attacked Iran because it was faced with the choice of being predator or prey, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday night.<\/p>\n<p>In comments to the media that were posted on the State Department&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.state.gov\/releases\/office-of-the-spokesperson\/2026\/03\/secretary-of-state-marco-rubio-remarks-to-press-6\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">website<\/a>, Rubio schooled media representatives on the need for Operation Epic Fury.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;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&rsquo;t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/white-house-moves-to-put-down-revolt-over-iran-messaging-confusion\/\" title=\"White House moves to put down revolt over ... messaging \u2018confusion\u2019\">suffer higher casualties<\/a> and perhaps even higher those killed, and then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn&rsquo;t act,&rdquo; Rubio explained.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked &mdash; and we believe they would be attacked &mdash; that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Rubi added that &ldquo;the Department of War assessed that if we did that, if we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked &mdash; and by someone else, Israel attacked them, they hit us first, and we waited for them to hit us &mdash; we would suffer more casualties and more deaths.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p> <script type=\"text\/javascript\"> \t\t\tif ( getCookie( \"ff_subbed\" ) ) { \t\t\t\tdocument.getElementById(\"anyclipvideo\").remove() \t\t\t} else { \t\t\t\tdocument.addEventListener(\"DOMContentLoaded\", function() { \t\t\t\t\tfunction loadAnyclip() { \t\t\t\t\t\tconst container=document.getElementById(\"anyclipvideo\"); \t\t\t\t\t\tif (!container) return; 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\t\t\t\t\tobserveElement(paragraphToObserve); \t\t\t\t}); \t\t\t} \t\t<\/script> <\/p>\n<p>Rubio said the truth of that assumption was revealed by Iran&rsquo;s response to the initial wave of attacks on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Within an hour of the initial attack on the leadership compound, the missile forces in the south and in the north for that matter had already been activated to launch. In fact, those had already been pre-positioned,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Rubio noted the bigger picture: Iran was building an arsenal of missiles that would stave off any attempt to rein in its nuclear ambitions.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Iran in about a year or a year and a half would cross the line of immunity,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;What they are trying to do and have been trying to do for a very long time is build a conventional weapons capability as a shield where they can hide behind, meaning there would come a point where they have so many <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/does-it-make-sense-to-add-finland-and-sweden-to-nato\/\" title=\"Does It Make Sense to Add Finland and Sweden to NATO?\">conventional missiles<\/a>, so many drones, and can inflict so much damage, that no one can do anything about their nuclear program,&rdquo; Rubio continued.<\/p>\n<p>Rubio said Iran has been out-producing its enemies.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;They are producing, by some estimates, over 100 of these missiles a month. Compare that to the six or seven interceptors that can be built a month. They can build a hundred of these a month, not to mention the thousands of one-way attack drones that they also have,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n<p>He remarked that the Iranian capability is reflected in charred buildings across the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re attacking airports. They&rsquo;re attacking hotels. They are hitting, not just military bases; they&rsquo;re attacking our embassies directly. They&rsquo;re attacking facilities that have nothing to do with war or with military,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;And that&rsquo;s a weakened Iran. That&rsquo;s an Iran despite years of sanction. Imagine a year from now or a year and a half from now the capabilities they would have to inflict damage on us. It&rsquo;s an unacceptable risk, especially in the hands of a regime that&rsquo;s run by radical clerics,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The ayatollah is a radical &mdash; was a radical cleric. That entire regime is led by radical clerics who don&rsquo;t make geopolitical decisions; they make decisions on the basis of theology &mdash; their view of theology, which is an apocalyptic one. That has to be taken very seriously as well,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Rubio noted that while the Trump administration would like to see a regime with a different worldview emerge, that is not the goal of Operation Epic Fury.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The United States is conducting an operation to eliminate the threat of Iran&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/north-korea-says-u-n-has-a-double-standard-over-missile-launches\/\" title=\"North Korea Says U.N. Has A \u2018Double Standard\u2019 Over Missile Launches\">short-range ballistic missiles<\/a> and the threat posed by their navy, particularly to naval assets. That is what it is focused on doing right now and it&rsquo;s doing quite successfully,&rdquo; he explained.<\/p>\n<div style=\"position: relative;\">\n<div class=\"ff-fancy-header-container\"> \t\t\t \t<\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-submit-correction inner-content\">\n<div class=\"correction-form\">\n<form style=\"display: none;\">\n<div class=\"sc-name-field\"> \t\t\t\t\t\t<label>* Name<\/label> \t\t\t\t\t\t<br \/> \t\t\t\t\t\t<input type=\"text\" name=\"name\" required> \t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<div class=\"sc--field\"> \t\t\t\t\t\t<label>* <\/label> \t\t\t\t\t\t<br \/> \t\t\t\t\t\t<input type=\"text\" name=\"\" required> \t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p> \t\t\t\t\t<label>* Message<\/label> \t\t\t\t\t<br \/> \t\t\t\t\t<textarea name=\"message\" required><\/textarea> \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<div class=\"required-message\" style=\"display: none; padding-bottom: 15px;\">* All fields are required.<\/div>\n<p> \t\t\t\t\t<input type=\"submit\" value=\"Submit\" onclick=\"event.preventDefault(); firefly_sc();\"> \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<div class=\"firefly-sc-confirm\" style=\"display: none;\">Success!<\/div>\n<\/p><\/form>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> \t\t<script> \t\t\tfunction firefly_sc() { \t\t\t\tif( typeof window.captchaPublicKey==typeof undefined ){ \t\t\t\t\tconsole.error('window.captchaPublicKey is not defined'); \t\t\t\t} \t\t\t\tgrecaptcha.execute( window.captchaPublicKey, { action: 'submit_correction' } ).then( function( token ) { \t\t\t\t\tvar opts={ \t\t\t\t\t\taction:    'firefly_sc_submit', \t\t\t\t\t\tname:      document.querySelector( '.entry-submit-correction [name=\"name\"]' ).value, \t\t\t\t\t\t:     document.querySelector( '.entry-submit-correction [name=\"\"]' ).value, \t\t\t\t\t\tmessage:   document.querySelector( '.entry-submit-correction [name=\"message\"]' ).value, \t\t\t\t\t\tpost_id:   firefly_post_id, \t\t\t\t\t\tcap_token: token \t\t\t\t\t}  \t\t\t\t\tvar inputs=[ 'name', '', 'message' ];  \t\t\t\t\tfor( var i=0; i <inputs.length; i++ ) if( ! ( opts[inputs[i]]=document.querySelector( '.entry-submit-correction [name=\"' + inputs[i] + '\"]' ).value ) ) { \t\t\t\t\t\tdocument.querySelector( '.entry-submit-correction .required-message' ).style.display='block'; \t\t\t\t\t\treturn; \t\t\t\t\t}  \t\t\t\t\tdocument.querySelector( '.entry-submit-correction input[type=\"submit\"]' ).style.display='none'; \t\t\t\t\tdocument.querySelector( '.entry-submit-correction .firefly-sc-submitting-img' ).src=firefly_loading_gif_url; \t\t\t\t\tdocument.querySelector( '.entry-submit-correction .firefly-sc-submitting-img' ).style.display='inline-block';  \t\t\t\t\tconsole.log( 'ma subbing' );  \t\t\t\t\tif( firefly_post_id ) opts['post_id']=firefly_post_id;  \t\t\t\t\t\/* Send the data using post with element id name and name2*\/ \t\t\t\t\tvar posting=jQuery.post( firefly_ajax_url, opts );  \t\t\t\t\t\/* Alerts the results *\/ \t\t\t\t\tposting.done( function( response ) { \t\t\t\t\t\tif( response.success ) { \t\t\t\t\t\t\tconsole.log( response.data ); \t\t\t\t\t\t\tdocument.querySelector( '.entry-submit-correction .firefly-sc-submitting-img' ).style.display='none'; \t\t\t\t\t\t\tdocument.querySelector( '.entry-submit-correction .firefly-sc-confirm' ).style.display='block';  \t\t\t\t\t\t\tdataLayer.push( { 'event': 'submit-correction' } ); \t\t\t\t\t\t} \t\t\t\t\t}); \t\t\t\t}); \t\t\t} \t\t<\/script> \t     \t\t\t\t\t\t     \t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p style=\"border: 1px solid #f5f5f5; padding: 16px;\">Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/advertise-us\/?wj_source=article\">Advertise Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><script>console.log(\"ad slot (BA1)\")<\/script> \t\t<\/p>\n<div class=\"ff-fancy-header-container\"> \t\t\t \t<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s a concise paraphrase of the main points, excluding the unrelated code and ads:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Rubio argued that the United States went ahead with preemptive action to avoid becoming prey after anticipating an Israeli move that could trigger Iranian retaliation. He said there was an imminent threat: if Iran were attacked, it would strike back at the U.S. immediately, so waiting would have led to more casualties.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The Department of War supposedly concluded that delaying until Iran attacked first would result in more deaths, so preemption was deemed necessary.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Rubio claimed Iran\u2019s response to the initial strikes showed the threat was real: missile forces in the north and south were already activated, with capabilities pre-positioned. He warned Iran is building a large conventional weapons arsenal to shield its nuclear ambitions and could reach a point where its military power makes it hard to stop its nuclear program within 12 to 18 months.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; He described Iran as producing missiles and drones at a high rate, far outpacing interceptors, and noted that its reach extends to airports, hotels, embassies, and other non-military targets\u2014illustrating what he called a weakened but still dangerous Iran under sanctions. He argued the regime is led by radical clerics whose decisions are driven by apocalyptic theology, and he stressed that this posed a serious risk.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Rubio said the mission of Operation Epic Fury is to neutralize Iran\u2019s short-range missiles and naval threats, not to topple the regime, and he claimed the operation is proceeding with notable success<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2575759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Ben-Working-Feature-Image-2026-03-03T175427.481.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4551,3823,4671,73799,5438],"class_list":["post-2575758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-foreign-policy","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-middle-east-2","tag-rubio"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Ben-Working-Feature-Image-2026-03-03T175427.481.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2575758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2575758"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2575758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2575766,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2575758\/revisions\/2575766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2575759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2575758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2575758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2575758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}