Israel and the United States will hold a joint military exercise in May when an interim agreement between Iran and world powers is due to expire, a high-ranking Israeli officer told TIME magazine. “It’s going to be big," the officer said.

According to TIME, "war games are an opportunity to make a statement without spilling blood — especially given the view that Washington has cooled on the prospect of new military operations."

"It will send signals both to Israel and to the Iranians that we are maintaining our capabilities in the military option," the Israeli officer said. "The atmosphere is we have to do it big time, we have to do a big show of capabilities and connections.”

“The focus will be to gather intelligence in order to reveal a fraud, and not to gather intelligence for an attack,” the officer said.

TIME estimates that Israel will likely continue to publically challenge the nuclear agreement, while making conspicuous efforts to rehabilitate the military threat "that did so much to bring Tehran’s project onto the agenda."

The joint exercise is scheduled for May but it is unclear whether it is part of routine drills between the armies. A spokesman for the US European Command said that the exercise was planned independent of events unfolding in the region. “I think we’re still in the process of deciding the scale of the exercise,” says Capt. John W. Ross, the EUCOM spokesman.

It was further stated that a May 2014 joint exercise "would stand in especially vivid contrast to what transpired in the last large joint exercise: Washington quietly scaled back its level of participation, amid fears that Israel was growing too bold."

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