Fox News analyst calls for the United States to launch attacks against Iran
Jack Keane: “We have to conduct a military retaliatory strike” against Iran
Published
Citation From the September 18 edition of Fox News' The Daily Briefing
DANA PERINO (HOST): Jack Keane is a Fox News senior strategic analyst and the chairman for the Institute for the Study of War. I wanted to get your take, sir, I don't know if you know Robert O'Brien, he's the new national security adviser. But regardless, with Iran, coming in at a time when you have the secretary of state in Saudi Arabia, you have Iran making these statements, and you have a United Nations General Assembly gathering next week. What are your general thoughts right now?
JACK KEANE (FOX NEWS SENIOR STRATEGIC ANALYST): Yeah, well, we have a major crisis on our hands here, Dana. And we have to understand the significance of what has happened. Certainly, Secretary Pompeo just registered that, in terms of an act of war. I mean, in reality, this is not just an attack on the largest oil field in the Middle East and our ally, Saudi Arabia. It is an egregious act of war because it's an attack on the world's economy. And since 1945, Dana, United States' core national interest has been to maintain and safeguard the Middle East oil flow in support of a stable economy.
And as such, the United States and our allies cannot let this stand. We've got to go to the U.N. after we declassify the evidence and make sure that people understand that Iran is absolutely responsible for this attack. That evidence is in. And build a coalition of support for, one, sanctions, which the president wants to do. And then also, realistically now, we have to conduct a military retaliatory strike. And the reason for that is we must impose costs on Iran to deter them from disrupting the world's economy, because that is what they are clearly focused on. And at this point, words are not doing that and sanctions are not doing it. It will take a military retaliatory strike. It doesn't mean we're going to war with Iran, an all-out war. It does mean we conduct a limited attack, likely again [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] targets who executed this attack, and also on some economic targets, in terms of oil production, distribution, storage. That is, I think, the path that we're on, and we can build support for that, because it's Iran who's disrupting the world's economy here and who wants to challenge the Middle East oil flow and who's in control of it, who's directing it.
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PERINO: OK, so I have two questions. Can Saudi Arabia respond? And also, this notion that Senator Cardin mentioned, that military response is not the answer. But If we look away, it doesn't mean that Iran is going to stop.
KEANE: Well, first of all, certainly Saudi Arabia's attacked and they have to respond and they will participate. And one of their senior generals said just this morning this is their 9/11. So they understand the seriousness of what has taken place. Now, as opposed to what Senator Cardin is talking about, this is a page out of the Obama administration. Obama was always paralyzed by the fear of adverse consequences, by the fear of escalation. Therefore, we do nothing, and we don't examine the consequences of doing nothing. If we do nothing, if we wring our hands and say, well, we fear that if we attack Iran now with a purposeful limited attack where we impose cost on them -- and when I say impose cost, we impose sufficient cost to deter them from the activity they're conducting. And if we're afraid to do that and in fear of it because they will escalate, then we wring our hands, we don't act. What will the Iranians keep doing? Disrupting the world's economy, creating a crisis. We have to step up. And there's ways to do this without walking up the ladder of escalation that leads ultimately to war if we're smart and savvy about the targets we select, and it must impose sufficient cost, is the issue.