Retired Gen. Jack Keane warned on Saturday that Iran feels they have the advantage in dragging out the current war, seeing the extended ceasefire as a victory over President Donald Trump.
Keane joined Fox & Friends Weekend and though he praised Trump as the United States’ best advantage in negotiations with Iran, he also warned that those at the negotiating table need to be realistic about where Iran stands.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is the current “dominant” force in Iran’s government, Keane said, meaning the U.S. is dealing with “hardliners” willing to drag the conflict out for as long as they can.
The Fox News analyst said:
These people are all the same for their bona fide hardliners and where they are coming from going into these talks [is] they think they made progress to get the United States to go to a pause and a ceasefire once they closed down Strait of Hormuz because they believe that decision was made because of political and economic pressure. That has encouraged them to continue to do this, to drag out these negotiations. After all, we have passed a ceasefire deadline. In their minds — and we’ve got to get inside their head and how they are thinking out through their prism — but how they are thinking they believe that’s a good thing, “we’re dragging this out,” and therefore the pressure will mount on the president in terms of political and economic pressure that would force him to make more concessions and he certainly wanted to make.
Keane warned Iranian military leaders will “absorb suffering much beyond anything we think is tolerable because they do not care about the suffering of their people.”
The analyst and retired four-star general said he believes Trump will not fall into making further concessions to Iran, which has reportedly been striking ships in the Strait of Hormuz amid the ceasefire. Keane praised Trump’s blockade, however, as “formidable.”
“[They] are counting on the fact that the pressure will force [Trump] into making concessions he would not be willing to make,” Keane said. “That is not going to happen. i believe they’re in a state of miscalculation.”
Watch above via Fox News.
