Secretary of State Marco Rubio has come under fire for failing to plan for the security of thousands of Americans trapped in the Middle East as President Donald Trump wages war on Iran.
U.S. citizens were originally advised to shelter in place as the U.S. bombed Tehran and other targets in Iran, killing the country’s supreme leader and triggering retaliatory strikes against America’s allies in the Middle East.
Two days after the attacks began, the State Department’s assistant secretary for consular affairs, Mora Namdar, shared a message from Rubio urging Americans to “DEPART NOW” from more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries “using available commercial transportation, due to serious safety risks,” she wrote in a post on X.com.
By then, though, flights were grounded throughout much of the Persian Gulf.
The State Department’s list included Iran, Iraq, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates—all countries whose airspace was either closed or restricted as of Tuesday, according to Bloomberg.
Data from Flightradar24 showed that more than 12,300 flights in the region had been canceled as of Tuesday morning, including at major hubs such as Tel Aviv, Israel, Dubai, UAE, and Doha, Qatar.
British Airways canceled its flights at least through Tuesday, while other carriers—such as Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines—said key routes would not resume until Sunday or Monday at the earliest, Bloomberg reported.
Namdar’s X.com post provided a number for Americans to call for assistance arranging to depart via commercial means, but multiple embassies in the region posted messages saying U.S. citizens were responsible for making their own plans, even as they warned of the dangers facing Americans in the region.
Rep. Ted Lieu wrote on X.com that it was “clear” that Rubio “had no frickin plan.”
“The administration did not even do the most basic of planning to keep Americans out of harms way,” the California Democrat wrote. “@SecRubio needs to apologize for the FUBAR [f---ed up beyond all recognition] situation. Americans in multiple countries are in danger with no real way of leaving.”
In another post, Lieu called for U.S. government evacuation flights for stranded Americans in danger.
An estimated 500,000 to 1 million Americans are estimated to be living in the Middle East, according to the BBC.
After originally saying the strikes could be over in a few days, Trump has said the military campaign could last closer to five weeks—and that the U.S. had the weapons capacity to fight Iran “forever.”
In a video posted Monday to X.com, Rubio said the State Department had immediately “activated a 24/7 task force surging personnel and resources necessary to help provide American citizens with up-to-the-minute safety and security information.”
He encouraged Americans trapped in the Middle East sign up for the SMART traveler program to receive security alerts.
On Monday, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem said in a statement it was “not in a position at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel.”
The statement said the Israeli Ministry of Tourism was operating shuttles to border crossings with Egypt and Jordan, where limited flights are departing, but said the government couldn’t guarantee the safety of any Americans choosing to take advantage of the service.
A day later, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad ordered non-emergency U.S. government personnel to depart from U.S. Mission Iraq due to “safety risks,” and encouraged U.S. citizens in Iraq to leave the country as quickly as possible via commercial transportation.
The State Department also closed its embassies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait on Tuesday, The New York Times reported.
Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer who spent years working in embassies, said it was “stunning” how late the Baghdad evacuation order had come.
“Absolute negligence by Rubio, lack of planning and assessment by State,” he wrote in a post on X.com. “Nothing like previous conflicts. A first grader could have told you the embassy would be under significant threat from the immediate onset of hostilities.”
The Daily Beast has also reached out to the State Department for comment.
