There in black and white: The US admits it is bombing Iran at Israel’s request
The US government has just admitted it is bombing Iran at the request of Israel. The Trump administration previously strenuously denied it had been dragged into this defeat by its genocidal Middle East ally.
The statement appeared on the State Department website on 21 April 2026. We’re sorry we didn’t get to it earlier… but we weren’t exactly looking for an admission on that scale.
An equally surprised US-based ex-military commentator and Iran War critic named Jack Murphy posted the quote on X:
I had to check to make sure this was legit, it is. America is being governed by a small foreign country far abroad, while we stagger around in a zombie like state, dabbling in an economy held together by Netflix subscriptions and gamified internet gamblinghttps://t.co/gsaZwWTiVS pic.twitter.com/p3H5Wr0Cch
— Jack Murphy (@JackMurphyRGR) April 24, 2026
The full statement can be accessed here. The relevant passage reads:
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.
The full statement is a lengthy, Trump-style screed. It’s just the foremost military power on earth trying to justify the war — which it started — as some sort of act of existential self-preservation.
Just to reiterate…
US-Israel attacked Iran first on 28 February without provocation. Iran was offering unprecedented concessions in negotiations at the time. The Pentagon has since stated there was no imminent threat from Iran. And the UN’s atomic watchdog, the IAEA, has said there is no evidence Iran was developing a nuclear weapon.
The US has achieved none of its original war aims. Iran predictably closed the Straits of Hormuz, a vital oil channel, once attacked — creating a global energy crisis. Far from being defeated, Iran has said the war will continue until “the enemy’s inevitable and permanent humiliation, disgrace, regret, and surrender”. Trump came to power on an anti-war ‘America First’ ticket. He now faces worldwide humiliation.
A temporary ceasefire is currently in place amid attempts by Pakistan to broker a deal.
Trump — strenuous denials
Donald Trump has repeatedly denied Israel dragged the US into the war since the bombing began. He did so again on 20 April:
Israel never talked me into the war with Iran, the results of Oct. 7th, added to my lifelong opinion that IRAN CAN NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON, did.
And here he is quoted by the Guardian on 4 March, just days after the attack began. He has been asked if Israel forced the US hand:
No. I might have forced their hand.
Trump continued:
We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. They were going to attack. If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.
If you are struggling with the logic of the US president’s line of argument there… welcome to the club.
Nevertheless, the US State Department website now says the US is fighting Iran:
- at the request of Israel
- as a matter of national defence
In that order.
As ever, it is hard to know what an American leadership clique — as erratic as this one — is thinking. But that particular point is there in black and white.
Featured image via the Canary
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Yet strangely, the US agreed to a ceasefire with Iran which infuriated the supposedly all-powerful Israeli Jews who, according to Canary, control the US government. Will Canary now be promoting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Despite rumours to the contrary, US imperialism uses Israel as its attack dog to keep the Middle East under US hegemony, for reasons of profit.
Airlane1979 in your Zionist frenzy you are conflating how the US got into the conflict and how it is seeking to extricate itself. We can dismiss the gratuitously silly comment about the Elders of Zion, implying anti-semitic intent ( perhaps you think protesting against Israel’s genocide is antisemitic too), and agree that you are correct that the US does indeed use Israel as it’s imperial attack dog in the Middle East. However it has long been Israel’s wish, declined by all US Presidents prior to Trump, to get the US to join Israel in an attack on Iran. Iran has always been seen as a regional block to both Israel’s dominance in the Middle East and more specifically the Greater Israel project mapped out by Netanyahu to the UN. Talking incidentally about “all powerful Israeli Jews” let’s not forget Miriam Adelson who donated $100 million in support of Trump’s 2024 campaign and that’s before you even look at the activities of other Israeli proxies in the US such as AIPAC. It has been widely reported in US media that Trump gave the green light to Operation Epic Fury two days after the April 11 presentation by Netanyahu in the Whitehouse Situation Room. It represents the first time the US has lost control of its hitherto autonomous foreign policy. If you doubt that, the clear evidence adduced by the Canary aside, consider two other events post Trumps decision. First is his attempt to walk back on his decision, he stated on Truth Social that he was not talked into joining in its attack on Iran by Israel – to paraphrase from Hamlet, “methinks the gentleman doth protest to much”. However if that is not persuasive enough consider the words of Jo Kent in his resignation letter shortly after Trump’s decision
“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
As head of Counter Terrorism I’d suggest he knows a it more about what went on than you and I.
Finally, the decision to impose a ceasefire by Trump and which has so pissed off the Israelis, serves two purposes. First, by comment consent of informed observers he needs an off ramp because the hubristic presentation given by the Israelis has turned to shit, and second it gives him the opportunity to seize back control of events after thehis embarrassing brain spasm in which he ceded control of US foreign policy interests to the Zionist entity.