The United States and Israel have come to an agreement about how to jointly deal with Iran’s growing power and influence in the Middle East.
According to one report, “U.S. and Israeli officials said the joint understandings were reached in a secret meeting between senior Israeli and U.S. delegations at the White House on December 12th.”
Following two days’ worth of meetings, U.S. and Israeli officials jointly produced a document containing measures they would take to counter Iran and Iranian actions in the region.
“The Israeli team was headed by national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and included senior representatives of the Israeli military, Ministry of Defense, Foreign Ministry and intelligence community. The U.S. side was headed by national security adviser H.R. McMaster and included senior representatives from the National Security Council, State Department, Department of Defense and the intelligence community,” the report said.
Both sides agreed to:
— Covert and diplomatic actions to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons;
— Diplomatic steps outside of the ‘nuclear deal’ negotiated by the Obama administration to put more pressure on Tehran;
— “Countering Iranian activity in the region, especially the Iranian entrenchment efforts in Syria and the Iranian support for Hezbollah and other terror groups,” the report said, including the drafting of a “day after” policy following the Syrian civil war;
— Countering Iranian ballistic missile development and production of precision missiles inside Syria for use by Iranian proxy Hezbollah in a future war with Israel;
— “Joint U.S.-Israeli preparation for different escalation scenarios in the region concerning Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.”
Of the new agreement, Israeli officials said: “[T]he U.S. and Israel see eye to eye the different developments in the region and especially those that are connected to Iran. We reached at understandings regarding the strategy and the policy needed to counter Iran. Our understandings deal with the overall strategy but also with concrete goals, way of action and the means which need to be used to get obtain those goals.” [source]
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