Gen Jack Keane: We CANNOT do this!

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]Now, a major update from the Middle East. On Monday, US forces again pounding southern Iran, carrying out strikes against missile launchers and tiny Iranian speedboats uh that we believe were mining the street of Hormuz. And meanwhile, Israel is now upping its military campaign against Iran's top proxy, Hezbollah, with massive a massive wave of strikes in southern Lebanon. Still at this hour, peace does remain a possibility.

[00:00:29]President Trump says the negotiations are proceeding nicely. Now, there is no debate. The president seeks peace and is going above and beyond to try and make that happen. But there are two points that are off the table, completely non-negotiable. One, the straight of moves will be open as Secretary of State Marco Rubio put it one way or the other. And second, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon or weaponsgrade uranium.

[00:00:55]Period. On Truth Social, the president posting the following statement. Quote, "The enriched uranium nuclear dust will either be immediately turned over to the US to be brought home and destroyed or preferably in conjunction and coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran, destroyed in place or at another acceptable location with the Atomic Energy Commission or its equivalent being witnessed to this process and event." Now, if anyone could pull it off, it would be President Trump. We wish him well on this. But unlike Obama, he knows who he's dealing with. Iran's hardline fourth tier radical leadership. They cannot be trusted. Thankfully, they are running out of options. They are getting near broke and weaker than they've ever been.

[00:01:40]In fact, Iran's new supreme leader supposedly warning supposedly, we don't know if he's dead or alive. In a statement, death to America, death to Israel, uh would become the Islamic Republic's rallying cry. as if that would be new and scary. It's not. Of course, the Supreme Leader himself might not even be alive. Uh we have still yet to see or hear from him after the very first strike during Epic Fury. Here with more, Fox News strategic analyst, retired general Jack Keane. Okay. The line is very clear in the sand. Um apparently some progress has been made.

[00:02:15]I'm I'm not briefed in as to what exactly that is. Uh there will be a meeting at the White House in in the situation room tomorrow, cabinet meeting. Um how do you see this progressing? Do you believe that progress has been made? And do you think that the president can accomplish that in a peaceful way?

[00:02:36]>> Well, first of all, it gives you a sense where the Iranians are. I mean, obviously, if they were outlining the straits of Amuse, it kind of gives you a sense that how serious are they really taking this? And obviously we we had the authority to do something about it and and we defeated that move uh clearly and also the source from which they fired weapons at us as a result of it. Also what's going on in Lebanon is instructive too in terms of where Iranian's head is. I mean, they're under a ceasefire in Lebanon, and the Iranians have fired, Sean, 900 rockets and missiles into northern Israel and have flown 1,200 drone attacks in there as well. And the inhabitants of northern Israel have had to flee their homes and villages, you know, as a result of it.

[00:03:24]And the and certainly the Israelis are are supposedly in a ceasefire themselves. And as a result of it, they can only react defensively. So they can't do offensive operation which makes them much more vulnerable to the Iranians. I'm I'm I'm setting the stage here for the Iranian state of mind and where where are they and how serious are they about these proposals? It it certainly remain remains to be seen. The first thing phase one we're trying to get a an agreement a memorandum of understanding of what the framework will be for the next 60 days of negotiations.

[00:04:01]So the words here will matter. Straits of Amuse number one. We know it's likely going to be open and the leverage for that is our own economic naval blockade.

[00:04:14]They open the straits, we remove the blockade. But here's what the Iranians want. They want authority over it even though it's open. Sony, we're not going to tolerate any fees. But they still want to be in charge of the process. We cannot let that stand. We can't can't have any words that implies that Iran has territorial rights over the straits when international law recognizes it as international waters and freedom of navigation has got to be there. So, we have to insist on that and I'm confident we will. Then we go into the tougher parts that you just laid out, Sean. And there's nothing easy about what's going on here because the Iranians, we know for a fact, don't abide by treaties.

[00:04:55]They've been a party to the non-prololiferation treaty for years.

[00:04:59]They're signators to it. And that means, you know, you don't acquire a nuclear weapon. What have they been doing for the same amount of time that they've signed that treaty is trying to acquire a nuclear weapon. So, they blew that treaty off. So what we come up with here, the Trump administration and and our negotiators are aware of this have to make certain that whatever the Iranians are going to say, we have to make certain that that is actually what is happening, not what's on a piece of paper, but what actually is happening on the ground with verifiable anytime, anywhere inspections. The president is not going to take a bad deal and part of that deal has got to be that. A couple of other points need to be made here. We do have we do have some leverage going forward once assuming the straits are open. The blockade is removed. What is that leverage? That leverage is financial frozen assets close to 100 billion.

[00:05:52]We're not sure the exact amount. The administration knows. And also sanctions. You going to want that early on. Why? Because that's going to help them to recover and to exist as a regime. We cannot do that. That is what Obama did and I'm confident the Trump administration is not going to do that.

[00:06:12]Something we have to understand though.

[00:06:15]I believe in the Iranians mind given the length of negotiations 6 weeks so far have taken place after 37 days of war. I believe in their mind there's less likelihood as we get closer to elections and the negotiations go on for 60 days that there's less likelihood the Trump administration would reattack if the deal falls apart and it's unsatisfactory. I think that's a calculation that they are prone to make and it's also a mistaken calculation because you cannot predict President Trump here. He is holding that card and if he has to use it I think he would use it regardless of the reality of the elections. He's in he's in this for the interest US national interest in the region which are vital and also the protection of allies and partners as well as the future stability of the world economy. So we got a lot of work in front of us here Sean. None of this is going to be easy. And we know who we're dealing with here. We're dealing with people who lie. We're dealing with people who have cheated in the past. And despite all the promises they make, we have to hold them accountable to their words and to their signature and make certain they are really coming through if we're going to have a deal that's going to be effective. It's got to last beyond the Trump administration. The Iranians will have it in their mind, okay, we'll make a deal with Trump, but we'll turn that right around as soon as we get somebody else to play with. That cannot be what we are party to.

[00:07:52]>> General, the president has said no dust, no money. The blockade remains in place.

[00:07:56]Um, president did throw the world and the region a curveball and that is kind of insisting that every country in the region join the Abraham Accords. Do you see that as a possibility?

[00:08:10]Yeah. Well, the the real focus here is Qatar, but really it's a it's Saudi Arabia. So, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, they already have diplomatic relations with Israel.

[00:08:22]They're not part of the Abraham Accords.

[00:08:24]The UAE and and Bahrain, who are also obviously partners in the discussion the president had, they are part of the Abraham Accords. The focus is really on Saudi Arabia. And listen, I think there's some real pressure we should put on them. I mean, Saudi Arabia uh, you know, put pressure on the on the president when they they would not let our airplanes fly out of Saudi Arabia when we were trying to open the straits in Operation Freedom. Remember that? And we couldn't use their airspace either, which is a huge piece of ground. That reduced us to only carrierbased aircraft. That is absolutely outrageous.

[00:09:01]And Saudi Arabia came back again with the other Arabs just recently and putting more pressure on the administration saying, "Listen, we got to make a deal here. We shouldn't reattack because we're afraid that the Iranians are going to retaliate against our oil and gas infrastructure." They didn't ask us to help defend them like we're doing with Israel. We could we could do some of that.

[00:09:21]>> Uh but the reality is here, we should put some real pressure on them. I think the president's got a great idea here.

[00:09:27]Put pressure on this country. I I it's a little tiring to hear them uh talk publicly one thing and privately another. Let let's get them to really make some real commitments here to where we're going. And it's not just about their own self-interest. It's about the regional stability that we're looking forward to hear as well.

[00:09:48]>> General Keane, thank you for that analysis. It's important.

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