Sen. Marco Rubio asserted that the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani was needed to deter Iranian aggression in the Middle East.
Rubio, 48, called the airstrike on Soleimani an act of “self-defense” against continued escalating aggression from Iran against the United States and allies in the region during a Sunday interview on Face the Nation. The Florida Republican detailed the Iranian aggression the U.S. has tolerated for the past several months before stating that Soleimani’s death was a necessary step in stopping violence from Iran.
“This is not something overnight — they woke up one morning and said, ‘Let’s start attacking Americans.’ This is an ongoing pattern of escalation in which they use proxy groups to carry out what they believe are deniable attacks. They can kill Americans. They can deny it was them,” Rubio explained. “But we know it was them, they know we know it was them, everybody else knows it was them. Some of these countries around the world pretend it wasn’t them so they don’t have to get out of the Iran deal, but everybody knows it was them.”
He added, “They think they can ratchet that up without consequence. They thought they could get away with it, because we’re distracted by our domestic politics because we’re so divided internally that we’re not going to do anything about it.”
Rubio noted that he has seen the evidence of the “imminent attack” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said was thwarted when the U.S. killed Soleimani but could not discuss it due to the sensitivity of the information. He also claimed that Soleimani was in Iraq as part of an effort to overthrow the Iraqi government to find someone more aligned with Iran.
It is not yet clear how Iran will respond to Soleimani’s death, though one member of parliament suggested attacking the White House, signaling a serious conflict between the U.S. and the country.
