Back to them. I want to bring in retired General
Jack Keane,
our analyst here at Fox General.
As you look at this map and you see what
the CENTCOM put out,
how do you think this is all shaping up?
I mean, 85 specific targets is a lot.
Yeah, there's no doubt about it.
And the delivery of you know
125 precision munitions bringing our B1 bomber all the way
from the United States because it's got precision bombs on
it,
but it's got heavy duty bombs.
And so that that's a significant capability.
I mean we're in a very early stages of this.
I applaud the administration. This is going to go on
for days and and conduct A sustained air campaign.
That's the right thing to do.
And let's see what what actually happens as a result
of it.
I do have some underlying concerns.
Certainly the administration seems to be saying that they're not
going to take out anything that's in Iran.
It's not so much that it's the IRGC.
So our audience understands they fund,
arm, train direct and provide intelligence to all of these
proxies that are operating in the Middle East.
And so they are a key center of gravity target.
And the reason why you want to go to Iran
is because that's where they are,
that's where the capabilities are,
that's where the units are and that's where the leaders
are.
They certainly have some capability out in the region here,
but it's limited. So those major targets if you're going
to take down the IRGC capabilities are in Iran.
You don't have to go after civilians to do it.
A lot of it's on on the coast to do
it.
There's Navy there, there's a training center and there's also
leaders that we that we can deal with.
My fundamental concern here is the administration is
expresses the view they don't want to provoke Iran into
a wider war.
That is the same assumption they made in dealing with
Putin and why we provided half measures in terms of
no advanced weapons.
We didn't want to provoke Putin into using nuclear weapons,
which he was brandishing 2 years into that.
We know that assumption is flawed.
It's not factual. And I believe this is the same
issue here.
So you have, you know,
these are the strikes today.
But if you look over,
you know, since October 17th,
you have
166 attacks by these proxy groups,
various efforts to go hit U.S.
forces at bases in the Red Sea
from Yemen, from all of these different groups in general,
you know, the president said time and time again,
don't you know, don't do it.
This is now a response to the three Americans who
have been killed.
But obviously since October 17th,
there's been a lot. I mean there were 80 attacks
before October the 17th during the Biden administration.
So there's there's been an unbelievable part of it.
And when he said don't they already did.
We're not expanding the war.
Iran expanded the war through its proxies in in northern
Israel,
80,000 Israelis displaced the Houthi campaign,
disrupting 50% of the traffic through the Suez Canal
and the Red Sea. That's an expansion of the war
by Iran and the Houthis.
And as you suggest, I mean,
my God,
165 attacks. We should have been pounding them to prevent
eventual loss of life as opposed to doing something after
the loss of life.
Now as far as these groups,
the Iranian proxy groups, when anybody says that we can't
prove that
Iran's behind this. You know,
you look at all of the groups around the region
here,
the Council of Foreign Relations,
for example, 12 groups across six countries in the Middle
East.
You've got Hamas and Hezbollah,
Hezbollah being the largest with
45,000 in their ranks. But all of these little groups,
is it fair to say,
General that they're not operating without the blessing or direction
of the IRGC
and Iran? Yeah, I mean,
they don't control the day-to-day tactics of these organizations,
just like we don't control the day-to-day tactics of our
subordinate units.
But are they overall in charge?
Are they directing In a general sense,
yes. Are they arming, training,
funding? Yes. This is, this has been a brilliant strategy
of the Iranians to use their proxies,
Brett, that exist in foreign countries
against Iran's principal adversaries, and that is United States and
Israel primarily.
They want to drive the United States out of the
region,
weaken the state of Israel so much
that people don't want to live there and it'll dry
up.
That's what they're doing and their proxies are the instruments
of that.
And they get away with it because we don't want
to provoke Iran,
which is a mistake in judgment.
Last thing general and we are going to see some
battle assessments,
damage assessment, you know, as time goes on about what
exactly
was was struck, There was criticism early on that the
early strikes really didn't do anything.
There were ammo dumps that had plenty of time for
people to get away,
85 targets, 125 precision guided
weapons. Are we suspecting that this is going to be
significant?
You know, as far as what is hit?
Well, I I hope the pattern here of the targets
and the amount of weapons that are being used continues.
And listen, I want this to succeed.
I don't want to be right that we've got a
false assumption here and
Iran's not going to stop.
Let's hope this succeeds. After all,
we've got pilots in harm's way flying these missions.
We got troops on the ground that are likely going
to get some kind of a RE attack,
and obviously they need to be protected.
So let's see this mission to the end and make
a fundamental conclusion at the end whether this was extensive
enough and do we think there's any deterrence in this
capability that would execute in here.
We're just getting word from CENTCOM that they believe that
everything they wanted to strike,
they struck. They believe those those targets that they were
hitting is what they went after.
They also have told us that all of the aircraft
fortunately have cleared the area without incident.
So that that is good news.
General Jack Keane as always.
Yeah, great talking to you very much.