suggests

Secretary of state says he hopes Iranian people would overthrow regime as US military says six service members killed.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has suggested that a planned Israeli attack against Iran determined the timing of Washington’s assault against the government in Tehran.

The United States’ top diplomat told reporters on Monday that Washington was aware that Israel was going to attack Iran, and that Tehran would retaliate against US interests in the region, so American forces struck pre-emptively.

“We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio said.

The US secretary of state’s comments came minutes before the US military confirmed that its death toll from the conflict has risen to six after recovering two bodies from a regional facility struck by Iran.

Tehran retaliated against the joint US-Israeli attacks that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, several top officials and hundreds of civilians with drone and missile launches across the region, including against American bases and assets in the Gulf.

Rubio’s assertion highlights the Israeli role in bringing about the war, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been seeking for years.

On Sunday, Netanyahu said the attacks on Iran are happening with the assistance of his “friend”, US President Donald Trump.

“This coalition of forces allows us to do what I have yearned to do for 40 years,” the Israeli prime minister said in a video message.

For his part, Rubio told reporters on Monday that an attack on Iran had to happen because Tehran was amassing missiles and drones that it would have used to protect its nuclear programme and acquire an atomic bomb.

Israel and the US launched the war less than 48 hours after a round of talks between American and Iranian officials over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Rubio said the goal of the war is to destroy Iran’s missile and drone programmes, but stressed the US would welcome ending the current ruling system in Tehran.

“We would not be heartbroken, and we hope that the Iranian people can overthrow this government and establish a new future for that country. We would love for that to be possible,” he said.

A poll conducted in the hours after the United States and Israel launched a major military operation against Iran, sparking regional retaliation, shows dismal approval for the strikes from the US public.

The Reuters Ipsos poll was conducted beginning on Saturday and closing on Sunday, before the administration of President Donald Trump announced that the first US troops had been killed in the conflict. Only one in four respondents approved of the US-Israeli attacks.

The early findings could have a significant effect on how the Trump administration moves forward in the days ahead and on how lawmakers respond to the attacks, particularly as they look to a punishing midterm election season.

Trump on Sunday promised to continue what he described as a “righteous mission” until “all objectives are achieved”. Referencing the three US military members announced killed on Sunday, Trump said that “there will likely be more before it ends”.

After a US-Israeli strike killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Trump again framed Iran as an existential threat to the US, claiming that the country’s leaders “have waged war against civilization itself”.

The Reuters-Ipsos poll suggested that the US public does not share that view, with 43 percent of respondents saying they disapproved of the war and another 29 percent saying they were unsure.

Approval among Republicans was stronger, but not resounding, with 55 percent saying they approved of the strikes, 13 percent disapproving and 32 percent unsure.

Perhaps most significantly, about 42 percent of Republicans said they would be less likely to support the operation if it led to “US troops in the Middle East being killed or injured”.

About 74 percent of Democrats disapproved of the strike, with 7 percent approving and 19 percent unsure.

Midterms loom

The poll released on Sunday comes as Republican lawmakers have largely coalesced around Trump’s message on Iran, even as its contradiction to Trump’s campaign promises risks alienating his Make America Great Again (MAGA) base.

Trump had run on a pledge to cease “endless wars” and halt US interventionism abroad in an “America First” pivot.

While Trump has shown a unique ability to shape the views of his staunchest supporters in his likeness, some conservative commentators have warned that he is playing with fire.

“If this war is a swift, easy, and decisive victory, most of them will get over it,” Blake Neff, a former producer for late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, wrote on X on Saturday.

“But if the war is anything else, there will be a lot of anger.”

He added that “success can override bad explanations. So we must pray for success.”

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said the confirmation that US soldiers had been killed “brings home the cost of the war”.

“Americans, by a very large margin, don’t want to be tied up in an ongoing conflict in the Middle East,” he said during a television interview. “The fact that Americans have died suddenly shows this is not just a video game from the standpoint of America.”

Beyond the three US military personnel killed, at least 201 people have been killed in Iran, nine in Israel, two in Iraq, three in the United Arab Emirates and one in Kuwait.

Meanwhile, 45 percent of respondents to the Reuters-Ipsos poll, including 34 percent of Republicans and 44 percent of independents, said they would be less likely to support the campaign against Iran if gas or oil prices increased in the US.

The conflict has threatened arterial trade routes, with several companies suspending shipments in the area.

Democrats will also be keeping a close eye on public sentiment on the war, which will surely hang over the campaign season ahead of the midterm elections in November.

The party has made affordability a key issue, with incumbents and upstart challengers alike portraying Trump’s military adventurism, which has also included the US abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, as out of touch with his messaging.

Elected Democrats, meanwhile, have given a range of responses to the US operation against Iran, with at least one Democratic senator praising Trump’s strikes. Others celebrated Khamenei’s killing, but remained more circumspect on Trump’s justification for the attacks, while several others were forthright in condemning the strikes.

Several Democrats on Sunday said the killing of US soldiers underscored the urgency of passing a war powers resolution, which would require approval from Congress before further military action is taken.

“I’m thinking of the brave American soldiers killed today,” Senator Chris Van Hollen, a proponent of the resolution, posted on X on Sunday. “They should still be with us.”

“Trump said he would keep us out of war. This is his war of choice.”

A vote on the resolution is expected early this week.

Mike Huckabee, the United States ambassador to Israel, has suggested that he would not object if Israel were to take most of the Middle East, stressing what he described as the Jewish people’s right to the land.

In an interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson that aired on Friday, Huckabee was pressed about the geographical borders of Israel, which he argues are rooted in the Bible.

Carlson told Huckabee that the biblical verse had promised the land to the descendants of Abraham, including the area between the Euphrates River in Iraq and the Nile River in Egypt.

Such a swath would encompass modern-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and parts of Saudi Arabia.

“It would be fine if they took it all,” said Huckabee, who was appointed by President Donald Trump last year.

Carlson, who appeared taken aback by the statement, asked Huckabee if indeed he would approve of Israel expanding over the entire region.

“They don’t want to take it over. They’re not asking to take it over,” the ambassador replied.

The US envoy, an avowed Christian Zionist and staunch defender of Israel, later appeared to walk back his assertion, saying that it “was somewhat of a hyperbolic statement”.

Still, he left the door open for Israeli expansionism based on his religious interpretation.

“If they end up getting attacked by all these places, and they win that war, and they take that land, OK, that’s a whole other discussion,” Huckabee said.

The Department of State did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on whether Secretary of State Marco Rubio shares Huckabee’s views on Israel’s right to expand.

The principle of territorial integrity and the prohibition against the acquisition of land by force have been a bedrock of international law since World War II.

In 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal and must cease immediately.

But Israeli law does not clearly demarcate the country’s borders. Israel also occupies the Golan Heights in Syria, which it illegally annexed in 1981.

The US is the only country that recognises Israel’s claimed sovereignty over the Syrian territory.

After the 2024 war with Hezbollah, Israel also set up military outposts in five points inside Lebanon.

Some Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have openly promoted the idea of a “Greater Israel” with expanded borders.

Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stirred international outrage in 2023 when he spoke at an event featuring a map that included the Palestinian territories and portions of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan as part of Israel, set against the colours of the Israeli flag.

In his interview with Carlson, Huckabee tried to argue that Israel’s right to exist is rooted in international law, but he also attacked the legal institutions that oversee international law for their opposition to Israeli abuses.

“One of the reasons I’m so grateful President Trump and Secretary Rubio are pushing hard, trying to get rid of the ICC [International Criminal Court] and the ICJ is because they have become rogue organisations that are no longer really about an equal application of law,” he said.

Beyond his professed religious devotion to Israel, Huckabee has faced criticism for failing to speak up for the rights of US citizens who have been killed and imprisoned by Israeli forces during his ambassadorship.

Last year, Huckabee even sparked anger from some conservatives in the US when he met with convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, who sold US intelligence secrets to the Israeli government, details of which later made it to the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

Pollard, a former civilian analyst in the US Navy, served 30 years in jail and moved to Israel in 2020 after his release. He never expressed regret for his crimes, and in 2021, he called on Jewish employees in US security agencies to spy for Israel.

Huckabee said he does not agree with Pollard’s views, but he denied hosting him, arguing that he simply held a meeting with him at the US embassy in Jerusalem.

Asked if anyone can walk into the embassy to meet the envoy, Huckabee acknowledged that such a meeting requires a pre-approved appointment.

“He was able to come to the US embassy to have a meeting at his request. I did, and frankly, I don’t regret it,” Huckabee said.

“I met with a lot of people over the course of the time I’ve been here and will meet with a lot more.”

US president says at inaugural Board of Peace summit that Washington and Tehran should make a ‘meaningful deal’.

Donald Trump has renewed his threats against Iran, suggesting that Tehran has about 10 days to reach a deal with Washington or face further military strikes.

Speaking at the inaugural Board of Peace meeting in Washington, DC, on Thursday, the United States president reiterated his argument that the joint Israeli-US strikes against Iran in June of last year paved the way to the “ceasefire” in Gaza.

Trump argued that without the US attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the “threat” of Iran would have prevented countries in the region from agreeing to “peace in the Middle East”.

“So now we may have to take it a step further, or we may not,” Trump said. “Maybe we’re going to make a deal. You’re going to be finding out over the next probably 10 days.”

Trump’s comments come days after the US and Iran held a second round of indirect talks.

On Wednesday, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi said the two sides made “good progress in the negotiations” in Geneva and “were able to reach broad agreement on a set of guiding principles” for an agreement.

But the US has continued to amass military assets in the Gulf region, including two aircraft carriers and dozens of fighter jets.

Iran, which denies seeking a nuclear weapon, has said it would agree to curbing its uranium enrichment and placing it under rigorous international inspection.

But the Trump administration has said that it would oppose any Iranian enrichment. Washington has also sought to place limits on Tehran’s missile arsenal, but Iranian officials have ruled out any concessions over the issue, which they say is a non-negotiable defence principle.

On Thursday, Trump said his diplomatic aides Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have had “very good meetings” with Iran’s representatives.

“We have to make a meaningful deal. Otherwise, bad things happen,” he said.

Last week, Trump said the US and Iran should come to an agreement “over the next month”, warning Tehran with “very traumatic” consequences.

But Iranian officials have expressed defiance against the US president’s threats.

“The Americans constantly say that they’ve sent a warship toward Iran. Of course, a warship is a dangerous piece of military hardware,” Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei wrote on X on Thursday.

“However, more dangerous than that warship is the weapon that can send that warship to the bottom of the sea.”

Tensions between the Washington and Tehran have been escalating since late 2025, when Trump – while hosting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in December – vowed to strike Iran again if attempts to rebuild its nuclear or missile programmes.

Days later, antigovernment protests broke out in Iran. Trump encouraged the demonstrators to take over state institutions, promising them that “help is on the way”.

Trump appeared to step back from the brink of attacking Iran last month, saying that the country agreed to halt the execution of dissidents under US pressure.

The two countries later renewed negotiations with the first round of talks since the June war taking place in Oman on February 6.

But threats and hostile rhetoric between Washington and Tehran have persisted despite the ongoing diplomacy.

In 2018, during his first term Trump nixed the multilateral nuclear deal that saw Iran scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for lifting international sanctions against its economy.