U.S. Secretary of State/National Security Advisor Marco Rubio, in Jan. 28 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, apparently changed the mission of the military forces recently deployed to Southwest Asia from punishing Iran to protecting 30,000 U.S. troops already there. “And so I think it’s wise and prudent to have a force posture within the region that could respond and potentially, not necessarily what’s going to happen, but if necessary, preemptively prevent the attack against thousands of American servicemen and other facilities in the region. And our allies,” Rubio told the committee, reported Gulf News.
“I hope it doesn’t come to that, but that’s, I think, what you’re seeing now, is the ability to posture assets in the region to defend against what could be an Iranian threat against our personnel,” he added.
