Colby: Israel is fighting a different war in Iran

The U.S. is pursuing “scoped and reasonable objectives” in its military campaign against Iran and is not seeking regime change through force, argued Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby in a Tuesday Senate hearing.

When pressed about why the campaign began with the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Colby declined to comment directly. “I’m talking about the goals of the American military campaign,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Those are Israeli operations.”

The comments come as the Trump administration is increasingly seeking to place the responsibility on Israel for the growing war with Iran. On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. decided to attack because “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action” against Iran.

“And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio told reporters. “And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn't act.”