Rubio says US struck Iran fearing it would retaliate for Israeli attack
Is this competence or optics?
The messaging coming out of the White House on the latest strikes sounds totally incoherent. The article quotes Marco Rubio to the effect that the U.S. ‘had to’ strike because Israel was going to anyway, Iran would retaliate, and therefore the U.S. needed to join in to protect Americans from retaliation. Say what? If that’s the logic, then what did the U.S. do to deter or delay an Israeli preemptive strike, and if it couldn’t, why not? Why did we just agree to go along?
At the same time, the administration has said the strikes were necessary to prevent Iran from advancing its nuclear program. But this comes after last year’s claims that earlier strikes imposed a "major setback" and their pushback on assessments suggesting the effectiveness of the strikes was limited:
If the goal is again to prevent Iran going nuclear, does that mean last year’s operation didn’t accomplish what was claimed, or that the effect was temporary and Iran adapted faster than expected? Because that's exactly what I predicted would happen 8 months ago:
The most generous interpretation that doesn’t assume an admission of failure is that last year’s strikes were presented as a setback, and this year’s are being defended as necessary either because the setback was smaller than claimed, because Iran recovered faster than expected, or because the U.S. is now treating regional escalation and force protection as the decisive near-term reason to act even if counterproliferation is the broader objective. But the administration keeps cycling through justifications without clearly stating which objective is primary or what success actually looks like.
If each strike only sets Iran back months, the public is entitled to ask if we are going to be striking Iran every year to keep its nuclear program from advancing?
Is this competence or optics?
The messaging coming out of the White House on the latest strikes sounds totally incoherent. The article quotes Marco Rubio to the effect that the U.S. ‘had to’ strike because Israel was going to anyway, Iran would retaliate, and therefore the U.S. needed to join in to protect Americans from retaliation. Say what? If that’s the logic, then what did the U.S. do to deter or delay an Israeli preemptive strike, and if it couldn’t, why not? Why did we just agree to go along?
At the same time, the administration has said the strikes were necessary to prevent Iran from advancing its nuclear program. But this comes after last year’s claims that earlier strikes imposed a "major setback" and their pushback on assessments suggesting the effectiveness of the strikes was limited:
If the goal is again to prevent Iran going nuclear, does that mean last year’s operation didn’t accomplish what was claimed, or that the effect was temporary and Iran adapted faster than expected? Because that's exactly what I predicted would happen 8 months ago:
The most generous interpretation that doesn’t assume an admission of failure is that last year’s strikes were presented as a setback, and this year’s are being defended as necessary either because the setback was smaller than claimed, because Iran recovered faster than expected, or because the U.S. is now treating regional escalation and force protection as the decisive near-term reason to act even if counterproliferation is the broader objective. But the administration keeps cycling through justifications without clearly stating which objective is primary or what success actually looks like.
If each strike only sets Iran back months, the public is entitled to ask if we are going to be striking Iran every year to keep its nuclear program from advancing?
Rubio says US struck Iran fearing it would retaliate for Israeli attack
Is this competence or optics?
The messaging coming out of the White House on the latest strikes sounds totally incoherent. The article quotes Marco Rubio to the effect that the U.S. ‘had to’ strike because Israel was going to anyway, Iran would retaliate, and therefore the U.S. needed to join in to protect Americans from retaliation. Say what? If that’s the logic, then what did the U.S. do to deter or delay an Israeli preemptive strike, and if it couldn’t, why not? Why did we just agree to go along?
At the same time, the administration has said the strikes were necessary to prevent Iran from advancing its nuclear program. But this comes after last year’s claims that earlier strikes imposed a "major setback" and their pushback on assessments suggesting the effectiveness of the strikes was limited:
If the goal is again to prevent Iran going nuclear, does that mean last year’s operation didn’t accomplish what was claimed, or that the effect was temporary and Iran adapted faster than expected? Because that's exactly what I predicted would happen 8 months ago:
The most generous interpretation that doesn’t assume an admission of failure is that last year’s strikes were presented as a setback, and this year’s are being defended as necessary either because the setback was smaller than claimed, because Iran recovered faster than expected, or because the U.S. is now treating regional escalation and force protection as the decisive near-term reason to act even if counterproliferation is the broader objective. But the administration keeps cycling through justifications without clearly stating which objective is primary or what success actually looks like.
If each strike only sets Iran back months, the public is entitled to ask if we are going to be striking Iran every year to keep its nuclear program from advancing?
0 Comments
0 Shares
38 Views
0 Reviews
