{"id":1102405,"date":"2021-12-09T11:59:30","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T16:59:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1102405"},"modified":"2021-12-09T11:59:37","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T16:59:37","slug":"us-israel-to-discuss-military-drills-for-iran-scenario-official-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/us-israel-to-discuss-military-drills-for-iran-scenario-official-says\/","title":{"rendered":"US, Israel To Discuss Military Drills for Iran Scenario, Official Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fus-israel-to-discuss-military-drills-for-iran-scenario-official-says%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1102405&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/GettyImages-1232914828_736x514.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>By Phil Stewart<\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters)\u2014U.S.&nbsp;and&nbsp;Israeli defense chiefs are expected on Thursday to discuss&nbsp;possible&nbsp;military&nbsp;exercises that would prepare for a worst-case&nbsp;scenario&nbsp;to destroy&nbsp;Iran&#8217;s nuclear facilities should diplomacy&nbsp;fail and if their nations&#8217; leaders request&nbsp;it, a senior&nbsp;U.S.&nbsp;official told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>The scheduled&nbsp;U.S.&nbsp;talks with visiting&nbsp;Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz follow an Oct. 25 briefing by Pentagon leaders to White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the full set of&nbsp;military&nbsp;options available to ensure that&nbsp;Iran&nbsp;would not be able to produce a nuclear weapon, the official said on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n<p>Iran&nbsp;denies seeking nuclear weapons, saying it wants to master nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.<\/p>\n<p>The&nbsp;U.S.-Israeli preparations, which have not been previously reported, underscore Western concern about difficult nuclear talks with&nbsp;Iran&nbsp;that President Joe Biden had hoped would revive a 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by his predecessor, Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p>But&nbsp;U.S.&nbsp;and European officials have voiced dismay after talks last week at sweeping demands by&nbsp;Iran&#8217;s new, hardline government, heightening suspicions in the West that&nbsp;Iran&nbsp;is playing for time while advancing its nuclear program.<\/p>\n<p>The&nbsp;U.S.&nbsp;official declined to offer details on the potential&nbsp;military&nbsp;exercises.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re in this pickle because&nbsp;Iran&#8217;s nuclear program is advancing to a point beyond which it has any conventional rationale,&#8221; the official said, while still voicing hope for discussions.<\/p>\n<p>The&nbsp;Israeli embassy in Washington and&nbsp;Iran&#8217;s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Gantz, in a post on Twitter as he departed for the United States, said: &#8220;We will discuss&nbsp;possible modes of action to ensure the cessation of (Iran&#8217;s) attempt to enter the nuclear sphere and broaden its activity in the region.&#8221; He did not elaborate.<\/p>\n<p>Nuclear negotiations will resume on Thursday, according to the European Union official chairing the talks, and the&nbsp;U.S.&nbsp;special envoy for&nbsp;Iran&nbsp;plans to join them over the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said last week that&nbsp;Iran&nbsp;had started the process of enriching uranium to up to 20% purity with one cascade, or cluster, of 166 advanced IR-6 machines at its Fordow plant, which is dug into a mountain, making it harder to attack.<\/p>\n<p>The 2015 agreement gave&nbsp;Iran&nbsp;sanctions relief but imposed strict limits on its uranium enrichment activities, extending the time it would need to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon, if it chose to, to at least a year from around two to three months. Most nuclear experts say that period is now considerably shorter.<\/p>\n<p>Underlining how badly eroded the deal is, that pact does not allow&nbsp;Iran&nbsp;to enrich uranium at Fordow at all, let alone with advanced centrifuges.<\/p>\n<p>With the deal&#8217;s nuclear benefits now badly compromised, some Western officials say there is little time left before the foundation of the deal is damaged beyond repair.<\/p>\n<p>Such&nbsp;drills&nbsp;by the United States and&nbsp;Israel&nbsp;could address calls by Dennis Ross, a former senior&nbsp;U.S.&nbsp;official and Middle East expert, and others to openly signal to&nbsp;Iran&nbsp;that the United States and&nbsp;Israel&nbsp;are still serious about preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Biden needs to disabuse&nbsp;Iran&nbsp;of the notion that Washington will not act militarily and will stop&nbsp;Israel&nbsp;from doing so,&#8221; Ross wrote last month.<\/p>\n<p>Ross even suggested the United States should perhaps signal a willingness to give the&nbsp;Israeli&#8217;s the&nbsp;U.S.&nbsp;military&#8217;s bunker-busting Massive Ordnance Penetrator, a 30,000-pound bomb.<\/p>\n<p>Asked about such remarks about deterrence, the senior&nbsp;U.S.&nbsp;official said: &#8220;When President Biden says&nbsp;Iran&nbsp;will never get a nuclear weapon, I mean, he means it.&#8221; Central Intelligence Agency Director Bill Burns said on Monday that the CIA does not believe&nbsp;Iran&#8217;s supreme leader has decided to take steps to weaponize a nuclear device but noted advances in its ability to enrich uranium, one pathway to the fissile material for a bomb.<\/p>\n<p>Burns cautioned that, even if&nbsp;Iran&nbsp;decided to go ahead, it would still require a lot of work to weaponize that fissile material before attaching a nuclear weapon to a missile or other delivery system.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But they&#8217;re further along in their mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle and that&#8217;s the kind of knowledge that is very difficult to sanction away or make disappear, as well,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>U.S.&nbsp;officials have also long worried about America&#8217;s ability to detect and destroy dispersed components of&nbsp;Iran&#8217;s nuclear weaponization program once enough fissile material for a bomb were produced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters)\u2014U.S.\u00a0and\u00a0Israeli defense chiefs are expected on Thursday to discuss\u00a0possible\u00a0military\u00a0exercises that would prepare for a worst-case\u00a0scenario\u00a0to destroy\u00a0Iran&#8217;s nuclear facilities should diplomacy\u00a0fail and if their nations&#8217; leaders request\u00a0it, &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1102405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1102405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1102405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1102405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1102405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}