Mike Johnson does not want to call the military conflict with Iran a war.Image: keystone
The Trump-loyal speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, does not want to talk about a “war” against Iran. Instead, he called the conflict an “operation.” Statements by Foreign Secretary Marco Rubio also raise questions.
03/04/2026, 04:2903/04/2026, 06:01
A CNNJournalist asked Johnson, who was passing by, whether he would call the mutual attacks by US and Israeli units and Iran a war. The Speaker of the House of Representatives responded by saying he thought “it’s an operation.”
After a moment’s hesitation he added:
“It is a dangerous operation and an important one. We had to act because there was an imminent threat. But there is no declaration of war.”
The Trump administration has been sharply criticized by Democrats, including some Republicans, for its intervention against Iran other figures from the MAGA camp joined the criticism. Some people reject interventionism per se; the Democrats primarily complain that Trump acted without consulting Congress. In previous US wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, Congress was informed and voted in favor of the military maneuvers.
However, Republican supporters of Trump’s actions do not see this as necessary; they point, among other things, to Barack Obama’s attack on Libya under the then dictator Muammar Gaddafi. At that time, Obama ordered airstrikes without congressional approval. Although these prevented immediate massacres of the civilian population in the North African country, they created a massive power vacuum and instability in the long term.
Obama later described the intervention in Libya as justifiable, but that he carried it out without concrete plans for a post-war order as the “biggest mistake” of his presidency. The US government is currently being accused of not having a plan in its actions against Iran. Members of the government and Trump himself changed the presentation of US goals and the justifications for the attack on Iran several times.
On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Speaker Johnson justified the attack by citing Israel’s decisive intention to act. The USA was forced to attack “preemptively” because Israel would have done so anyway. That in turn would have automatically resulted in Iranian counterattacks on US bases, Rubio claimed.
The 54-year-old has now put this portrayal into perspective and thus once again caused a contradiction. So he declared on Wednesday night (Swiss time) that the USA had attacked Iran to protect its own security interests – and not because of Israel’s actions.
According to Rubio, his Israel statements were misrepresented.Image: keystone
It was no longer a question of whether the USA would attack Iran, but only a matter of when, he said in Washington.
“One way or another it had to happen.”
Regarding his previous contradictory statement, Rubio said that he had already said the same thing on Monday, but his statement had not been reproduced correctly.
Rubio also emphasized that the decision to go to war was made solely by President Donald Trump.
“His decision was that Iran would not be allowed to hide behind its ballistic missile program.”
In addition, Iran should never acquire nuclear weapons.
After the attack, Trump also became entangled in contradictions and, among other things, of a regime change, but also of one “Venezuela scenario” as a “perfect” solution spoken for the situation. There, the existing government under former Vice President Delcy Rodriguez agreed to cooperate with the USA after the kidnapping of dictator Nicolas Maduro. Trump recently declared negotiations with Iran over and announced even more intensive attacks.
Current developments in the war:
It is still unclear how long the war will last. Trump spoke on Tuesday of “four to five weeks”. However, after the briefing with Rubio, several members of Congress expressed skepticism that this was realistic. “After this briefing, I am more afraid than ever that we could deploy ground troops,” said Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal.
Republican Josh Hawley took a similar line. “It sounded very open-ended to me.” The US troops had achieved a lot with their attacks within a short period of time, so he hoped that the whole thing would be ended quickly. After Rubio’s statements before Congress, he also did not want to rule out the possibility that the US government could decide to deploy ground troops. He would hardly support this, says Hawley.
Josh Hawley wants the war to end quickly.Image: keystone
Nonpartisan Senator Angus King described Rubio’s statements as “stunning,” CNN reported. King said Rubio “unintentionally told the truth” in his earlier statement about Israel’s role. (con/sda/dpa)