The State Department said in a statement last week that the US is in conflict with Iran “at the request” of Israel, an acknowledgment of Israel’s role in steering the US into the war, which the US has dubbed “Operation Epic Fury.”
The statement was issued by the State Department’s legal adviser, Reed D. Rubinstein, who attempted to provide a legal justification for the war.
“As the United States has explained in multiple letters to the UN Security Council, including most recently on March 10, the United States is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally, as well as in the exercise of the United States’ own inherent right of self-defense,” Rubinstein said.
The term “collective self-defense” was likely used to echo Article 51 of the UN Charter, which states that nothing in the charter “shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations,” but the US does not have a mutual defense treaty with Israel and is not bound by US law to defend the country.
The US and Israel were also the first to attack Iran, undercutting the US claim of “self-defense.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio had previously said that the US launched the war because Israel was planning to attack and that Iran’s retaliation could have involved attacks on US bases.
Rubinstein repeated the argument made by the White House that the US has been in an ongoing conflict with Iran over the decades, which is based on claims that attacks by Iran-allied factions on US troops in the Middle East were part of an Iranian war against the US. The argument that omits the US’s history of backing forces against Iran, such as the US supporting Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.
