On the second day of the US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran, US secretary of state Marco Rubio indicated that the decision to go to war was the result of Israeli, rather than American, calculations. “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 and perhaps even higher those killed, and then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act.”
The statement, casually made, was interpreted by many as an admission of guilt; the United States is doing Israel’s bidding in the current joint bombing campaign. While it is clear that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s persistent lobbying for an attack influenced Donald Trump to make decisions in June 2025 and now act against Iran, the idea that Israel dragged the United States into war, or that this is solely Israel’s war with the United States blindly following, is wrong.
This war represents the peak of efforts by a neoconservative alliance within global elites that includes supporters in the US national security establishment and the Israeli military and political leaders as well as in the conservative petro-dollar Arab regimes of the Gulf and European Atlanticist circles. This pro-interventionist stance does not reflect the views of the entire Western capitalist class but rather significant segments, which are primarily driven by the energy and arms industries.
According to this worldview, which has remained consistent over the past thirty years, American dominance in the Gulf region is essential for maintaining stable energy prices and supplies as well as securing the West’s military and economic advantage worldwide. The neocon alliance now faces a strategic opening after the shifts since October 2023, when many members of the “axis of resistance”…
Auteur: Nimrod Flaschenberg
