pretext

Rejecting Beijing’s Taiwan independence narrative is a key to deterrence, the people said, as doing so would deny China a potential pretext for conflict that mirrors Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Oregon’s attorney general filed a lawsuit Monday alleging the president had applied a “baseless, wildly hyperbolic pretext” to send in the troops.

"I fear that the flotilla's attempt to break the Israeli naval blockade could serve as a pretext to do so," Meloni said.

“It was about creating a pretext to send armed military troops to our communities.”

Speaking to a group of journalists, Pezeshkian accused foreign powers of seeking a superficial pretext to set the region ablaze, insisting that, despite previous threats, Iran would not quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty.