The Biden administration's diplomatic strategy toward Iran has failed and it needs to "wake up" on what the Islamic Republic is trying to do in the Middle East after the deaths of U.S. troops this weekend, retired Gen. Jack Keane said Monday.
Three U.S. troops were killed and dozens were injured in a drone attack on an outpost in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border, which Biden blamed on a radical Iran-backed militia. The attack marked a major escalation of tensions in the region, after months of strikes by militia groups on American forces in the region in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.
The president had expressed confidence earlier this month that Iran wouldn't take drastic action after the U.S. and its allies bombed Yemen in response to attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea by Iran-backed Houthi militants, saying Iran knew "not to do anything."
On "America's Newsroom," Keane said the Biden administration needed to see reality when it came to Iran.
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"Iran doesn't want war with the United States, but Iran's strategic objectives is what they're really about here," said the Fox News senior strategic analyst.
"They want to dominate and control the Middle East, drive the United States out of the Middle East to be able to accomplish that, and weaken Israel politically to the point where people don't want to live there anymore. That's what they're about here. These proxies that we're talking about, I mean, the administration has got to wake up. They're saying, 'Well, we don't want to expand into a regional conflict.' The regional conflict is here!"
"Hezbollah is conducting daily attacks into northern Israel and displaced 80,000 Israelis in northern Israel. Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy. The Houthis have cut the traffic through the Suez Canal by over 50 percent, impacting the global supply economy."
Keane said the administration "doesn't get it" and needed to reset its strategy, advising Biden to seek to organize the international community to isolate Iran, sanction Iran and China for buying the former's fuel, and work with Israel on keeping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"They've got to reset their strategy comprehensively here. Organize the international community to isolate Iran. The appeasement diplomatic strategy failed… A military strike here is very appropriate, and it has to have the right target in mind so that Iran will finally begin to shut down these proxies," Keane said, adding the administration should target the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), Iran's powerful military branch that exercises malign influence throughout the Middle East.
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Keane said he was "frustrated" with the entire situation and his heart went out to the families of the U.S. troops who had been killed, as well as the two Navy SEALs who were declared dead after going missing during an Iranian weapons seizure off the African coast this month.
"We've been predicting this would actually happen because we haven't had a strong enough response to shut this down sooner. That's what's so shameful about all of this. We don't take strong action until Americans get killed," Keane said. "We should have taken the strong action to prevent the Americans from being killed. That's what's so bothersome here. The administration has got to find some spine here and recognize that nothing's going to stop until they take something away from the Iranians that they truly value. And believe me, it's not the fighters, rockets and missiles that their proxies own.
"It's what they own, and we've seen the evidence of that. Reagan did it in the late 80s when he went after IRGC bases and capabilities. Trump did it in 2021, he went after the major leader of the IRGC. We should do both, leaders and bases of the IRGC."
Fox News' Louis Casiano and Bradford Betz contributed to this report.
