In explaining the reason for the war by the United States against Iran, US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said it was because of fears that Iran would retaliate in response to planned Israeli action against Tehran. “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’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio said. President Trump had a different take on the issue. “I might have forced their (Israel’s) hand,” he told reporters in the Oval Office as he met with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.” These shifting and contradictory explanations have led critics of the administration from both the rightwing, Republican MAGA base and many Democrats to assert that the administration was acting at the behest of Israel and not in the interest of the United States.