Washington Post columnist David Ignatius commented on the implications for the U.S. of Israel’s attack on Iran last night, Friday morning, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

WILLIE GEIST, MSNBC: Marco Rubio, as you pointed out a few minutes ago, put out that statement distancing the United States-saying this was a unilateral attack by Israel on Iran, that the United States had nothing to do with it. Jonathan Lemire just reported this morning President Trump suggested he did get a phone call, had a heads-up. What do you make of how much-or how little-the United States was involved? DAVID IGNATIUS, WASHINGTON POST: For the moment, it appears that the most that could be said of the U.S. is that we acquiesced in this Israeli action. I don’t see any evidence-unlike last October, when CENTCOM actively, decisively helped defeat Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel-that there’s been any similarly coordinated response. In recent weeks, it seemed to me there’s almost a three-way game of chicken going on between President Trump, Israel, and Iran: the threat Israel is making to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities; the effort Trump is making, which threatens Israel’s interests in negotiating with Iran; and Iran leaning in both hard and soft directions. In the end, Israel just decided it wasn’t prepared to wait for U.S. diplomacy-which, in a way, was threatening to Israel, as if we were about to make some kind of deal with the country they consider their biggest enemy. That’s something to keep in mind-this was a threatening process for Israel. We’ll have to see whether President Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, goes ahead with his plan to meet an Iranian representative on Sunday in Oman. That seems very unlikely at a time when, as we see from these pictures, smoke is coming out of buildings that have been bombed. But you never can be sure. It could come back to what I said at the beginning. The essence of this strike, from what we can see, is an attack on the Iranian leadership-the military leadership, the IRGC, the top two scientists-not an attack on the nuclear facilities themselves. So far, several facilities have escaped damage. Again, it looks to me like what Israel did in Lebanon-and we remember that campaign continued for many days-and that may be a sign of what’s ahead here. WILLIE GEIST, MSNBC: To David’s point about this attack, The New York Times puts it this way this morning: A remarkable coup of intelligence and military force that immediately decapitated Tehran’s chain of command.