Americans would approve of an Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, Florida Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio told a conservative blogger in a video interview yesterday.

“Israel has to do whatever Israel needs to do for their own national security,” Rubio told Javier Manjarres of the Shark Tank blog. “You would hope that the United States, by taking a stronger role, would prevent that from needing to happen, but ultimately, I don’t think any of us are going to blame Israel if they take it upon themselves to ensure that the security and well-being of their people is safeguarded.”

In the interview recorded after Monday’s Tampa event where he picked up the endorsement of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Rubio criticized as “naive” the Obama administration’s policy of removing terms like “Islamic jihad” from national-security reports.

“It’s naive, short-sighted, quite frankly, misguided in terms of what [President Obama] thinks he’s going to accomplish,” said Rubio, the former speaker of Florida’s state House of Representatives. “These folks don’t attack America because of something America’s done or because we hurt their feelings. They want to attack America because of who we are. We’re the only country standing in their way from imposing their worldview on as many people as possible.”

Polls show Rubio with a commanding lead over Florida Gov. Charlie Crist in the GOP Senate primary, and it is now widely rumored that Crist will leave the Republican Party to run as an independent candidate for the  seat vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Mel Martinez.