Representative Joaquin Castro, a Democrat, said that Rubio’s comments indicated that Israel “put US forces in harm’s way by insisting on (an) attack on Iran”.
“This is unacceptable of the president, and unacceptable of a country that calls itself our ally,” Castro wrote on X.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier said that it was Israel that carried out the strike on Saturday in Tehran that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other key officials, after intelligence emerged that they were meeting.
Rubio, however, said that President Donald Trump’s administration believed in the need to strike Iran, regardless of how the timing was triggered.
“No matter what, ultimately this operation needed to happen,” Rubio said.
Rubio said that the US would like to see the overthrow of Iran’s clerical state but that that was not the goal.
“We hope that the Iranian people can overthrow this government and establish a new future for that country. We would love for that to be possible,” Rubio said.
“But the objective of this mission is the destruction of their ballistic missile capabilities and of their naval capabilities.”
The State Department on Monday urged Americans to leave much of the Middle East, including Egypt and Gulf states, due to the US-Israeli war on Iran.
The department “urges Americans to DEPART NOW from the countries below using available commercial transportation, due to serious safety risks”, Mora Namdar, the assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, wrote on X, listing 14 countries.