Fox News personalities are pushing for President Donald Trump to begin bombing Iran again as a tenuous ceasefire shows potential signs of collapse.
According to Axios, U.S. Central Command has prepared bombing plans for Trump, “which would likely include infrastructure targets,” acts that experts say could constitute a war crime, though Trump “had yet to order any kinetic action as of Tuesday night.”
Earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump preferred to extend the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran had effectively closed, and that he had “assessed that his other options—resume bombing or walk away from the conflict—carried more risk than maintaining the blockade."
If Trump is listening to advice from Fox figures on how to proceed, he's been hearing numerous people advocate for resuming bombing.
On April 28, retired General Jack Keane argued to restart the bombing campaign during an appearance on America’s Newsroom.
“I think to me the obvious pathway forward is finish what we started,” Keane said. “The negotiations have not worked.” The United States should instead “go back to the combat operations."
As Media Matters previously reported, Keane, who is a Fox News senior strategic analyst, sits on the board of directors of two defense contractors that could benefit from a resumption of active hostility.
On April 23, former national security adviser Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general, said that “you’ve got to get rid of that regime — you’re going to have a theocratic regime there and I think we just need to finish the job and we need to finish them off."
In late March, Kellogg joined the board of directors of Powerus, a drone company that lists Trump’s sons as investors. Powerus is reportedly attempting to sell drone interceptors to Persian Gulf countries that have been attacked by Iran and could be targeted in retaliatory strikes if the U.S. resumes its bombing.
Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen, who is reportedly consulting Trump on the war, said on April 23 that “the time has come” to “start the military campaign again” and that the U.S. “can finish this in two weeks."
Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner claimed on April 22 that the Revolutionary Guard “did nothing but get stronger when you took out the ayatollah,” referring to a joint U.S.-Israeli operation that killed Iran’s former supreme leader on the first day of the war.
“We have a job to finish now and this is the president that Wall Street and I would argue millions of voters are betting on,” Faulkner said. “So finish the job."
Fox News host Sean Hannity similarly argued for a maximalist military operation, after briefly noting that he would “prefer to negotiate a settlement."
“What would be in the best long-term interest of preventing them from reconstituting a nuclear program, fomenting terror in the region, is to just totally bomb them out,” Hannity said. “That would be the easier choice for us."
Since the United States and Israel launched their unprovoked war of aggression on February 28, the hostilities have killed at least 3,400 people in Iran, including approximately 1,701 civilians.
