Jerusalem Post
November 28, 2013
Israel and the United States will stage a large-scale military exercise toward the end of the six-month period in which the interim agreement between the P5+1 powers and Iran takes effect, Time magazine reported on Thursday.
The drill is intended to signal to the Iranians that while the West may prefer diplomacy to solve the nuclear stalemate, it is still keeping the military option alive should the need arise to use force in order to deny the Islamic Republic a nuclear weapons capability.
“[The exercise] is going to be big,” an Israeli officer told Time magazine. “The wind from the Americans into the Israeli sails is, ‘We will maintain our capability to strike in Iran, and one of the ways we show it is to train. It will send signals both to Israel and to the Iranians that we are maintaining our capabilities in the military option. The atmosphere is we have to do it big time, we have to do a big show of capabilities and connections.”
According to Time, the Israeli government has taken a “strategic decision to continue to make noise,” the source said.
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