US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that there was an imminent threat from Iran.
"There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked [BY WHOM?], and we believed they would be attacked [BY WHOM?], that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded," Rubio told reporters.
US embassies are under attack as a result of Iran's retaliatory actions against US and Israeli strikes, the secretary added.
He said that the US focuses on destroying Iran's ballistic missile capabilities and responding to the alleged threat by Iran's navy to global shipping.