• Trump claims Iran was about to strike first, contradicting Rubio.
• Conservatives criticise US involvement in Iran war.
• White House in damage control over conflicting war rationales.

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he ordered US forces to join Israel’s attack on Iran because he believed Iran was about to strike first, contradicting the rationale offered a day earlier by his secretary of state for how the war began.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Monday that the US launched the attack 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.

Trump rejected suggestions that Israel pushed the US into the conflict, as his administration gave varying accounts and faced criticism from some supporters and Democrats who accused him of launching a “war of choice.”

“I might have forced their (Israel’s) hand,” Trump 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.”

Iran has said the US assault was unprovoked.

Several prominent conservative commentators ratcheted up their criticism of the Iran attacks, arguing Rubio’s comments indicated that Israel, not the Trump administration, was calling the shots.

“So he’s flat out telling us that we’re in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand,” conservative podcaster Matt Walsh wrote of Rubio to his 4 million followers on X. “This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said.”

Megyn Kelly, a conservative podcaster, told her audience that she had doubts about Trump’s decision to strike Iran.

“Our government’s job is not to look out for Iran or for Israel. It’s to look out for us. And this feels very much to me like it is clearly Israel’s war,” Kelly said in remarks aired prior to Rubio’s comments.

The criticism from Trump’s right flank comes as his Republican Party is fighting to hold on to control of the US Congress in the November midterm elections.

Damage control

The debate over the run-up to the war has forced the White House into damage control.

Trump on Tuesday took questions from reporters in a public setting for the first time since the US-Israeli air war began three days earlier. He previously discussed the attacks in two videos, one-on-one interviews with select journalists and brief remarks on Monday at the White House.

The president said he believed Iran was on the brink of launching attacks, presenting no evidence to support his view, after US negotiations with Iran last Thursday in Geneva. Iran had described those talks as positive, with more planned in the days ahead.

“It’s something that had to be done,” said Trump, who did not make a detailed case for war against Iran before it began.

Rubio, pressed on Tuesday about his prior comment during a visit to Capitol Hill, told reporters: “The bottom line is this: The president determined we were not going to get hit first. It’s that simple, guys.”

Two senior Trump administration officials held a conference call on Tuesday with reporters to describe events leading up to military operations, in particular the Geneva talks with Iranian officials held by US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and mediated by Oman.

The two officials said Witkoff and Kushner repeatedly pressed Iran to give up uranium enrichment. Instead, Iran presented a plan that would allow the Iranians to enrich uranium at higher percentages at the Tehran Research Reactor in northern Iran, they said.

The US envoys felt the Iranians were engaging in delay tactics, according to the officials.

“They were unwilling to give up the building blocks of what they needed to preserve in order to get to a (nuclear) bomb,” one official said.

Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon.

The envoys reported back to Trump, telling him it might have been possible to get a nuclear agreement similar to the one that former President Barack Obama’s team and world powers negotiated with Iran in 2015 but that it would take months.

Trump ordered US forces into action the next day, and the strikes began on Saturday.

• Study visas blocked for Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar, Sudan.
• Britain will also halt work visas for Afghans.
• UK says legal asylum claims rose 470% between 2021 and 2025.
  

Britain said on Tuesday it would block study visas for nationals from four countries and halt work visas for Afghans, using what it called an “emergency brake” to curb rising asylum claims from people entering through legal routes.

Immigration remains one of Britain’s most politically sensitive issues, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government has sought to show it is tightening the system as the populist Reform UK party gains ground in opinion polls.

The interior ministry, which is set to block study visas for nationals from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan, said asylum applications by students from these countries had jumped more than fivefold between 2021 and 2025.

It also said claims by Afghans on work visas were now outstripping the number of visas issued.

“Britain will always provide refuge to people fleeing war and persecution, but our visa system must not be abused,” interior minister Shabana Mahmood said in a statement.

“That is why I am taking the unprecedented decision to refuse visas for those nationals seeking to exploit our generosity.”

Asylum claims trebling since 2021

According to the government, asylum claims made after entering on legal visas have more than trebled since 2021 and accounted for 39% of the 100,000 people who applied last year.

It said that nearly 16,000 nationals from the four listed countries were currently being supported at public expense, including more than 6,000 in hotels, adding to pressure over the cost of asylum accommodation, which it put at 4 billion pounds ($5.34 billion) a year.

The changes would take effect on March 26, the government said, adding that it intended to create new capped “safe and legal routes” once the asylum system stabilises.

Britain has granted sanctuary to more than 37,000 Afghans through resettlement schemes since 2021 and issued about 190,000 humanitarian visas last year.

It said it had secured cooperation from Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo on returns, after warning in November that their nationals risked losing access to UK visas.

Starmer has previously said that Britain’s asylum rules were more permissive compared with parts of Europe and acted as a “pull factor” for people seeking to reach the country.

His government announced plans in November to make refugee status temporary and speed up removals of people who arrive illegally.

With elections approaching in Israel, the war with Iran has handed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an opportunity to restore an image deeply scarred by October 7, 2023 Gaza attack, experts say.

But any political dividend would depend on how the conflict unfolds and how long it lasts, they say.

A day after Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was martyred in a wave of US-Israeli strikes, Netanyahu said that his close ties with Washington had enabled Israel to “do what I have long aspired to do for 40 years: to strike the terrorist regime decisively”.

The Gaza war eroded Netanyahu’s popularity. Critics have accused him of seeking to evade responsibility for the authorities’ failure to prevent the deadliest day in Israel’s history.

At 76, the leader of the right-wing Likud party is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, with more than 18 cumulative years in office across multiple stints.

Known for his political resilience, Netanyahu has been without a parliamentary majority since the summer, amid a crisis with his ultra-Orthodox religious allies.

He is also standing trial in a long-running corruption case and has sought a presidential pardon, with US President Donald Trump repeatedly pressuring President Isaac Herzog to grant one.

‘Total victory’

Elections must be held by October 27 at the latest.

Netanyahu will call early elections, says Emmanuel Navon, a political analyst at Tel Aviv University.

“It’s obvious. He won’t wait until October given the commemoration of the October 7 anniversary,” Navon said.

“If Netanyahu was at rock bottom after the Gaza attack, he has since gradually turned the tide,” he added.

A Likud party led by Netanyahu would emerge ahead in elections held today, opinion polls suggest.

That would likely see him tasked with forming the next government, though he would still lack a majority with his current allies.

A victory over Iran could change that calculus, experts say.

“This offensive undeniably reinforces the image Netanyahu seeks to cultivate, the one associated with his ‘total victory’ slogan,” independent geopolitical analyst Michael Horowitz told AFP.

“Netanyahu wants to show that this is not a campaign slogan but a reality. It is his national agenda and his electoral strategy,” he added.

‘Iran remains Iran’

Raviv Druker, a prominent journalist on Channel 13 television, argued that Netanyahu “will try to convince people that the victory is total even if that is an illusion,” noting that “Hamas still runs Gaza, and Iran remains Iran even after Saturday’s strike”.

On the popular news website Walla, journalist Ouriel Deskal went further, suggesting Netanyahu may have chosen the timing of the hostilities to automatically delay — under a state of emergency — the March 30 deadline for passing a budget for which he has struggled to secure a majority.

Without a budget, the government would fall on April 1 and elections would be called.

In that scenario, Netanyahu would enter the campaign from a position of weakness.

By contrast “if this war against Iran is a success for Israel, it will be a political victory for Netanyahu,” Navon said.

But should the war drag on, the picture could shift dramatically, Horowitz warned.

“Public tolerance for a long war with heavy casualties, combined with a high cost of living, remains extremely low,” he said.

During the war last June, Iranian missiles killed 30 people in Israel. Since Saturday, 10 people have been killed in Iran’s retaliatory strikes.

“Israel’s victories are primarily attributed to the army and to civilian resilience, which enabled the country to wage the longest war in its history,” Horowitz noted.

“The army’s popularity is rising, not necessarily Netanyahu’s.”