United States Put Forward Plans to Conduct Joint Military Planning With Israel to Confront Iran
Jose Nino
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According to three United States and three Israeli officials who reached out to Axios, the Biden regime proposed to Israel the idea of conducting joint military planning with regards to Iran.
American officials said the proposal is unprecedented and could see US-Israeli military cooperation be intensified.
Interestingly, Israeli officials have been rather lukewarm with respect to the proposal. There’s a genuine fear that this move would “tie Israel’s hands” from taking military action against Iran, above all its nuclear installations, should the US reject Israel’s bellicose behavior.
An American official emphasized that the proposal is “not about planning any kind of joint U.S.-Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear program.”
US officials claimed the proposal was brought up during recent visits to Israel by the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and CENTCOM commander General Erik Kurilla.
Israel didn’t flatly reject the idea but requested clarifications concerning what “joint military planning” actually means in practice, which includes whether this process is just confined to the area of intelligence and scenarios or extends into the area of joint operations, a senior Israeli official stated.
A US official reassured Israeli doubters the proposal was centered on the US military being committed to supporting Israel and wasn’t designed to hamstring Israel’s ability to conduct military operations.
All things considered, US-Israeli relations need to be recalibrated. The Middle East is no longer a region of interest for the US. On top of that, the US should not function as Israel’s cat’s paw in dealing with Iran. That’s a matter Israel will need to sort out with Iran. After all, Israel is a developed nation with a solid military. It’s more than capable of defending itself without US aid.
Hopefully, this special relationship gets retooled in the near future for the sake of reaching a point of geopolitical stability in the Middle East.
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