Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Monday afternoon. The possible topics for the private sit-down ranged from relieving the 17% tariffs Trump placed on Israel to strategizing about the war in Gaza. But Netanyahu “returning so soon” — he last visited Washington in February — “would suggest that this is a very significant conversation taking place,” suggested Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, especially since “this visit was scheduled with only a few days’ notice.”

Adding to the mystery, the White House cancelled a post-meeting joint news conference shortly before Netanyahu arrived. Trump said afterward he had not decided whether to reduce the tariffs on Israel.

The discussion is “very sensitive, and significant, and likely revolving around what the U.S. and Israel will do with Iran and its nuclear sites,” predicted CBN’s Middle East bureau chief Chris Mitchell on “Washington Watch” Monday. “Will they attack? Or will they delay it? Or will there actually be direct or indirect talks with Iran over its nuclear program?”

“President Trump sent a letter to the [Iranian leader] Ayatollah Khomeini, talking about the negotiations, but he put a two-month limit on it, which is going to expire not too far away,” Mitchell explained. “The U.S. is making it clear that Iran has to eliminate its nuclear program.”

“Whether that [happens] voluntarily or through military strike remains to be seen,” he continued. “It’s unlikely, it seems, after the long history of Iran and its nuclear program, that they would do so voluntarily. So, perhaps this meeting has to do with plans to have a joint U.S.-Israeli strike. Or maybe it’s the Israelis who really want to make sure that President Trump doesn’t get bogged down in endless negotiations.”

“I don’t think anyone disagrees over the timing, that this is the moment in which this threat has to be removed,” Perkins put in. But rather the question may be whether “the way forward [is] with the voluntary [disarmament] like what we saw with Libya. … There’s only one other option, and it looks like both countries could be prepared to take that other option, if necessary.”

“It looks like the military option is the way that it’s going to go,” Mitchell mused. He cited American forces assembling, “getting more and more assets here into the region,” including B-2 and B-52 bombers at Diego Garcia, a base in the Indian Ocean, “two carrier strike groups in the region” with “a third on its way,” and 30,000-pound bombs called the “Massive Ordnance Penetrator.” For its part, Israel has a top-notch air force that has already demonstrated its ability to operate in Iranian airspace with impunity.

Having such heavy bombs is “what probably can really make a difference in some of these sites in Iran right now that are buried deep underground, concrete hardened,” he explained. “Iran has done that because they … try to make it invulnerable to any air attack. … Iran knows what it’s doing, but they’re facing right now the possibility that their nuclear program might get hit very hard.”

Meanwhile, “Israel is accelerating their activity there in Gaza,” Perkins noted, which he interpreted as them “wanting to bring this to a conclusion pretty quickly, allowing them to turn their attention elsewhere.” Mitchell confirmed that Israel is “setting up security zones … shrinking the territory that Hamas is able to control … hopefully be able to put the pressure on so that more hostages would be released.”

Israel’s conflicts with Hamas and Iran are actually related, with new documents offering further confirmation of what Israel has long known. According to documents retrieved from the underground tunnel system used by the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Hamas requested $500 million from Iran “to destroy Israel,” and Iran agreed to send as much money as they were able, as “the struggle against Israel and the U.S. remains the regime’s top priority.” The documents date to October 2020 and June 2021, but Israel did not decode and publicly disclose them until Sunday.

In “part of that translation,” Mitchell mentioned, “they said that, ‘Allah willing, we will actually meet in a liberated Jerusalem.’ So the idea was that they could actually defeat Israel … which is the goal not only of Hamas, but also Iran as well: to ‘liberate’ Jerusalem, to destroy the Jewish state.”

“I am presenting today unequivocal proof of Iran’s support for Hamas’ plan to destroy Israel and carry out the October 7 massacre,” announced Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz.

This was entirely avoidable, because “the Trump administration had the maximum pressure policy that was nearly bankrupting the Islamic Republic,” Perkins observed. Then along came the Biden administration, which “eas[ed] sanctions on Iran for four years. … And, when lifting the sanctions, it literally gave billions of dollars back into Iran’s coffers.” Iran turned around and used that windfall “to actually fund, not only October 7th, but the Houthis down in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and all designed at the time to have this ring of fire around Israel and really eventually destroy the state of Israel,” said Mitchell.

“Here we were — we’re not doing it now, but — making it easier for Iran to have the excess revenue to fund terrorist activity and attacks on Israel that we, in turn, helped fund them to defend against,” protested Perkins. “It is certainly something that Americans, Christians here in America, need to be praying [about] because we were complicit, not directly, but indirectly, by allowing Iran to have the capacity and the capability to inspire and fund these attacks.”

But now the moment of Iran’s comeuppance may be drawing near. “The conclusion is clear: Iran is the head of the snake,” Katz insisted. “Despite all its denials, it continues to fund and promote terrorism across all fronts — from Gaza to Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and now Yemen, under the banner of its desire to destroy Israel.”