The U.S. military used “far more” high-end missiles to defend Israel from Iran’s counterattack than Tel Aviv used, raising new criticisms that the Trump administration is fully committed to an Israel-first foreign policy.

John Hudson, a national security reporter from The Washington Post,reported:

The U.S. fired more than 200 THAAD interceptors in defense of Israel — roughly half of the Pentagon’s total inventory — along with more than 100 SM-3 and SM-6 interceptors.By contrast, Israel fired fewer than 100 of its Arrow and around 90 David Sling interceptors

Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow from the Stimson Center, told Hudson: “The numbers are striking. The U.S. absorbed most of the missile defense mission while Israel conserved its own magazines...”

“Israel is not capable of fighting and winning wars on its own, but nobody actually knows this, because they never see the back end.” - U.S. official to The Post

Trita Parsi, senior vice president of the Quincy Institute,postedthat it is“very understandable that many view the Iran war as ‘Israel first’ when you see these statistics: The US depleted far more of its advanced missile-defense interceptors inventory to defend Israel than Israel itself did. The US fired more than 200 THAAD interceptors (50% of its stockpile) to defend Israel, but Israel fired fewer than 100 of its Arrow and around 90 David Sling interceptors. The US did more to defend Israel than Israel did to defend itself in a war that, according to Rubio, the US is inbecauseof Israel.”

Long forgotten in the mainstream U.S. media is the fact that Secretary of State Marco Rubiotold reportersdays after the initial sneak attack that the U.S. went to war with Iran because Israel was going to attack, which would have put American troops stationed in the region in immediate danger.

“The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, they would immediately come after us. We were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us and had to be prepared to act as a result of it,” Rubio said.

The Times of Israelwrote: “It was an extraordinary revelation that effectively suggested that the U.S. had only struck Iran because Israel had decided to do so first.”

Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister,postedthat Tehranalready knew that Israel forced the U.S.’s handto join the war by carrying out its so-called “preemptive strike” on the country.

Source: Trends in the News