Skip to main content Toggle Menu Join our Community Support ToI and remove all ads Learn more Get The Daily Edition Account Sign In Open Search form Input search Clear search input Israel & the Region Jewish Times Israel Inside Tech Israel Real Estate Israel Newsletters The Daily Edition What Matters Most Today Tech Israel Updates from Silicon Wadi Real Estate Israel Monthly Update The Weekend Edition The Best Reads of the Week Weekly Highlights Choice Voices From The Blogs Atlanta Jewish Times North New Jersey The Jewish Standard Jewish Chronicle United Kingdom The Jewish News The Australian Jewish News For Publishers Become a Partner Join our community About The Times of Israel Advertise on The Times of Israel Get the Daily Edition © 2026 The Times of Israel , All Rights Reserved Terms and conditions Privacy policy Open Search form Input search Clear search input Advertisement Hours earlier, Hegseth said IDF preemptive strike used US intel Rubio reveals US launched strikes against Iran because of planned Israeli attack Top diplomat says US understood its assets would be hit by Iran in retaliation for a preemptive Israeli strike, even though Jerusalem seen as unlikely to have acted without Trump’s blessing By Jacob Magid You will receive email alerts from this author.
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Manage alert preferences on your profile page Today, 3:12 am Send by email Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives to brief House and Senate leaders on US military action in Iran, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on March 2, 2026.
(Brendan Smialowski/ AFP) WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed Monday that Washington launched major strikes against Iran over the weekend because it received intelligence that its assets in the region would be targeted in response to an Israeli attack.
Speaking to reporters before holding a classified briefing with Congressional leaders, Rubio was asked to clarify the “imminent threat” posed by Iran that American officials have been citing in recent days to justify the US launch of Operation Epic Fury on Saturday.
“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 said.
“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.” It was an extraordinary revelation that effectively suggested that the US had only struck Iran because Israel had decided to do so first, even though it is widely understood that any Israeli attack on Iran would only have taken place with Washington’s blessing.
Moreover, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said hours earlier at a press conference that the Saturday morning Israeli strike that opened the war by killing supreme leader Ali Khamenei was conducted using American intelligence.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Newsletter email address By signing up, you agree to the terms US President Donald Trump has also several times taken credit for that strike.
Rubio: There was absolutely an imminent threat and it was that we knew that if Iran was attacked and we believe that they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow pic.twitter.com/jFDc38ttKR — Acyn (@Acyn) March 2, 2026 Advertisement Rubio later suggested that the US would have eventually launched Operation Epic Fury regardless and that the initial Israeli strike only explained why Washington chose to act on Saturday specifically.
“If we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked by someone else, we would suffer more casualties and more deaths,” he told reporters on Capitol Hill on Monday.
“There would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to happen and we didn’t act preemptively to prevent more casualties and loss of life,” the top US diplomat added.
He clarified that the US operation “needed to happen” no matter what.
Regardless, Rubio said it was key that Operation Epic Fury take place around now, “because Iran in about a year, or year and a half would’ve crossed the line of immunity — meaning they would have so many short range missiles, so many drones, that no one [would be able to] do anything about it because they could hold the whole world hostage.” Questions over the supposed urgency of the operation began piling up after a top US official briefing reporters on Saturday claimed that the US had obtained intelligence showing that Iran was planning to preemptively launch a missile attack against US assets around the region, thus leaving Trump with “no choice” but to act.
Advertisement A bird flies by a plume of smoke rising after a strike in Tehran, Iran, March 2, 2026.
(AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) The next day, though, senior Pentagon officials briefing Congressional leaders clarified on Sunday that Iran had not, in fact, been planning a preemptive missile strike on the US, CNN reported.
Asked whether regime change was a goal in Iran, as US President Donald Trump has indicated in the past, Rubio said the US would love to see it happen, but it is not among the aims of the current military operation.
“Our mission and our focus is the destruction of missiles and the ability to manufacture them, as well as their naval capabilities,” Rubio said.
The remarks caused further confusion, as Trump earlier Monday listed two other aims for Operation Epic Fury: ensuring Iran cannot support proxy militia groups or obtain a nuclear weapon.
“That said, we hope that the Iranian people can overthrow this government,” Rubio said.
“Whoever runs the regime, the goal is to ensure that they don’t have missiles and drones to threaten us,” he said, seemingly adding another war aim — neutralizing the Iranian drone threat.
An explosion is seen in Tehran, Iran, March 1, 2026.
(AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) Rubio was also pressed about a strike on a girls’ elementary school in southern Iran on Saturday that reportedly killed over 160 people.
The secretary said the US Defense Department is investigating the strike, while asserting that the US “would not deliberately target a school.” Advertisement Democrats unconvinced that imminent threat existed Following the briefing from Rubio, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson echoed Rubio’s explanation for the attack, calling it a “defensive operation” because he said Israel was determined to act on their own against Iran, “with or without American support.” Johnson said Trump had a “very difficult decision” to make, and determined that Iran would immediately retaliate against US personnel and assets.
This official White House photograph, made available on February 28, 2026, and released on the White House X account, shows US President Donald Trump (2L), speaking to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles (R), watched by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (C) while monitoring “Operation Epic Fury” activity against Iran, from an unnamed location on February 28, 2026.
(The White House/AFP) But Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said “there was no imminent threat to the United States of America by the Iranians.
There was a threat to Israel.” Rubio, Hegseth and others briefed the lawmakers, but Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said he found their answers “completely and totally insufficient.” The Trump administration will likely seek supplemental funds from Congress to pay for the operation, they said.
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David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel Join Our Community Join Our Community Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this Most Popular IDF strike kills Hezbollah intel chief; Lebanon to ban terror group’s military activity 3 US F-15 fighter jets shot down by Kuwait in ‘friendly fire’ incident; crews survive IDF strikes in Beirut after Hezbollah enters fray and fires rockets, drones at north AnalysisDubai’s carefully built image as sun-filled safe haven shattered by Iranian strikes AnalysisSinking Iran’s proxies, Sinwar’s Al-Aqsa Flood left Khamenei high and dry Three wounded in Iranian missile strike on highway outside Jerusalem Echoes of ancient PersiaWhat is the biblical holiday of Purim, and why do Israelis link it to Khamenei’s death? France ready to ‘take part’ in defense of Gulf countries and Jordan against Iran Advertisement read more: Israel & the Region 2026 US-Israel war with Iran Marco Rubio If you’d like to comment, join The Times of Israel Community.
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