Pentagon officials are drafting a slew of “contingency plans” for the U.S. and its Middle East allies, should growing tensions between Washington and Iran escalate in the region, says acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.

U.S. national security officials are also reaching out to American allies, in a effort to gin up “an international consensus” to increase pressure on Tehran, in the wake of a pair of attacks on commercial oil vessels in the Gulf of Oman, Mr. Shanahan told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday.

“When you look at the situation … 15 percent of the world’s oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz,” he said ahead of a meeting with Portuguese Defense Minister Joao Gomes Cravinho. “So we obviously need to make contingency plans should the situation deteriorate. We also need to broaden our support for this international situation.”

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