Shawn Thew / EPA
Donald Trump and Marco Rubio
The war is causing increasing discomfort. But the Secretary of State is benefiting from a rare combination.
not to war Iran is making more and more US residents uncomfortable, or even discontent.
The president Donald Trump concentrates the essential objection and other administration figures, such as the vice president J.D. Vance and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, face a scrutiny more intense.
But the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has managed to escape much of the political criticism generated by the North American escalation against Iran. Rubio appears relatively protected in the public debate, highlights the .
An experienced politician, despite being at the center of one of the most sensitive crises of the Trump administration, he has so far managed to preserve his own political space.
Rubio appears as the beneficiary of a rare combination: the institutional centrality of the position, the perception of greater sobriety in relation to other officials and the fact that Trump continues to absorb most of the political cost.
Marco Rubio is a figure who benefits, first and foremost, from the unique role that it occupies in the Trump administration’s power architecture.
As head of diplomacy, he appears less associated with the President’s political and rhetorical impulse – and more linked to crisis managementexternal communication and the attempt to give strategic coherence to a policy that, for many critics, has been marked by changing objectives.
This position allows you to function as face of containmenteven in a context of military confrontation.
Compared to other voices from the Trumpist wing, Rubio is seen by some interlocutors in Washington as “the less crazy”, the least radical; or, at least, as someone who seeks to frame the offensive within a diplomatic and international security logic.
There is also relative political immunity in the way Trump monopolizes the consequences of war.
It is the President who assumes political authorship of the operation, who personalizes the threats to Tehran and who polarizes the public discussion.
At the same time, Vance has been pressed for representing the most isolationist current of Trumpism, while Hegseth has been scrutinized by military conduct and contradictory messages about the objectives of the conflict.
Rubio, on the contrary, it manages to maintain itself in a intermediate plane: close to the decision-making center, but far enough away not to be the main target of public reaction.
This room for maneuver does not mean absence of risk. Rubio’s position remains delicate, because it depends on the evolution of the conflict and the administration’s ability to demonstrate concrete results.
In recent days, the Secretary of State has intensified diplomatic efforts: he has pressured allies to classify the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations and is preparing contacts with G7 partners to try to consolidate external support for the North American strategy, in a context in which several allies have been reluctant to accompany Washington militarily.
And this kind of protection can be temporary: If the war continues, if objectives remain unclear, or if Republican unease grows, the shield around Rubio could weaken.
