Marco Rubio has a message for the Americans who just voted against his war: you don’t understand.
The Secretary of State defended Trump’s decision to launch the war on Iran on Monday, calling it “necessary.” He conceded, almost as an afterthought, that it wasn’t “necessarily popular” and had something to do with the Republicans’ humiliating midterm losses last week.
The Insult
“He addressed it even though oftentimes the right thing to do for the country — confronting difficult challenges for the security of our country — doing it isn’t necessarily popular, but necessary,” Rubio said.
Read that again. Slowly. The war was unpopular. The American people rejected it. And Rubio’s conclusion is not that he was wrong. It’s that the American people are too small-minded to appreciate his courage.
That is what “necessary but not popular” means when a politician says it. It means: I know better than you. It means: your dead sons, your empty wallet, your fear of a draft notice — none of that matters because I am a statesman and you are a child.
Trump went further. “If I had it to do again, this historically — for history — will go down as one of the best things we ever did,” he told reporters. “Because if they ever had a nuclear weapon, they would blow up the world.”
He killed thousands of people, sent gas prices through the roof, and lost Congress for his party, and he still wants a monument for it.
The Wreckage
Let us count what this “necessary” war has actually produced.
Thousands dead. An entire region on fire. Oil prices that gutted working families at the pump. Inflation that voters named as their top concern. A generation of Iranians who will hate America for another fifty years. And the first Democratic Senate majority in years.
That is the ledger. That is the harvest of Rubio’s “necessary” war. And his response is to pat himself on the back and tell the voters who paid for it that they just don’t get it.
The Talks
Rubio says the talks with Iran are going nowhere. “The Iranian demands are simply not just unacceptable, but in some cases outrageous and ridiculous and really not realistic.”
Translation: after everything — after the bombs, the deaths, the wrecked economy — the Iranians won’t just surrender. And Rubio is surprised. He actually seems surprised. He thought the war would end with Iran on its knees. Instead, Iran just lifted its self-imposed ballistic missile-range limit and promised new weapons. Within hours of a U.S. task force announcement.
The Bottom Line
Marco Rubio says the Iran war was necessary and admits it was unpopular. He is telling the voters who just rejected it that they were wrong. Trump says he would do it again. The war has killed thousands, wrecked the economy, and cost the GOP both chambers.
My Opinion
Marco Rubio just told the American people, to their faces, that the war they voted against was the right thing to do.
Not “we got it wrong.” Not “we misjudged.” Not “we hear you.” No — the war was necessary. The country that rejected it is simply too simple to understand what a statesman like Marco Rubio was doing.
This is the oldest trick in the book. When a politician can’t defend his results, he defends his intentions. When he can’t defend his intentions, he defends his courage. And when he can’t defend his courage, he tells the voters they’re ignorant.
The war was a disaster. It killed thousands. It drove up prices. It handed Congress to the Democrats. And now, instead of apologizing, Rubio is explaining that this was all part of some grand, noble plan that we’re too small to see.
The war was not necessary. It was a choice that Trump made when he could have negotiated. He could have let inspectors in, tightened sanctions and done the boring, patient work of diplomacy. Instead, he launched a war, sold it with a fantasy about Iran “blowing up the world,” and then called it brave.
There’s nothing brave about it. It’s easy to start a war. It’s easy to call the voters stupid when they punish you for it. What’s hard is admitting you were wrong.
Marco Rubio doesn’t have it in him. Neither does Trump nor Vance. They would rather call the voters dumb than admit they made a mistake.
