Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,
An Israeli official said that the US hinted it was preparing a military option against Iran during a meeting between Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Friday, The Times of Israel reported.
The Israeli official said that Gantz told Sullivan that Israel "needs" the US to have a credible military option against Iran. The meeting came as Washington and Tehran are engaged in negotiations to revive the nuclear deal.
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| US Secretary of State Antony Blinken with Defense Minister Benny Gantz in a June 2021 meeting, via AP. |
The official said that Gantz received "good hints" that the US was preparing a military option. The official didn’t offer details but said the idea of the military option that Israel wants would be to get Iran to make more concessions in negotiations. If not, the US could potentially take military action against the Islamic Republic alongside Israel.
Gantz expressed his opposition to the nuclear deal in the meeting with Sullivan, and the Israelis are stepping up pressure on the Biden administration to abandon the talks. As part of the pressure campaign, the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, David Barnea, is heading to Washington next week.
Barnea is expected to brief members of the House and Senate intelligence committees on Israel’s opposition to reviving the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA. He will also meet with CIA Director William Burns and other Biden administration officials.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid slammed the EU’s recent proposal to revive the JCPOA, calling it a “bad deal.” Iran is currently reviewing the US response to the EU proposal, which came after Tehran gave a response of its own.
Lapid said that the EU proposal is not something President Biden said he would pursue during his trip to Israel in July. "We told the Americans: 'This is not what President Biden wanted.' This is not what he talked about during his visit to the country," he said.
