Middleboro Review and so on

EMPHASIS MINE!      Days ago, the Trump administration, in coordination with Israel, conducted military strikes on Iran, which resulted in the deaths of several senior Iranian officials, including Ayatollah Khamenei, and six U.S. servicemembers. Administration officials cited at first an "imminent threat to the United States" and framed these strikes as a preemptive measure. In the days since, that story has begun to unravel. When Secretary of State Marco Rubio was questioned about the justification for putting troops in harm's way and dragging the United States into yet another ill-conceived and poorly defined conflict in the Middle East, he gave a truly mind-boggling answer: "I've been asked: why now? One reason why is that it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States. If we stood and waited for that attack to come first, before we hit t...