‘PREPARED TO TURN TO OTHER OPTIONS’: Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz met with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon and Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the State Department yesterday, and high on the agenda was a discussion of options in the event diplomacy fails to bring Iran back in compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by the Trump administration.

The meetings come as Reuters quoted a senior U.S. official as saying the two defense chiefs were expected to discuss “possible military exercises that would prepare for a worst-case scenario to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities should diplomacy fail and if their nations’ leaders request it.”