Gen. Keane: This seems PRETTY OBVIOUS...

Retired 4-star General Jack Keane joins me now. General, an offer from the Iranians to open the strait without discussion of nuclear deal. Is that progress?

No, not at all Stuart. I mean, where we are, we've had weeks of negotiations now, and I think we've come to the conclusion, it seems pretty obvious, the Iranians are never going to propose a deal that we can accept. That is the pathway we're on. That's number one. Number two, the reality is where the Iranians are, and we have a tendency to look at them through our value system and our prism of what is reasonable.

And you've got to understand where they're coming from. We think it's reasonable that because their oil is shut down and it's eventually going to be corrosive to the oil production that they're doing, it's going to have an even worse impact on them long term. They really don't care about the suffering in their people. They don't care if there are gas lines. They don't care if the lights are going down in certain parts of the country, you don't have electricity. They're going to try to ride this out because they believe in the long run the pressure

on the United States politically and economically with an election coming and with the oil prices at the levels they're at or maybe even worse is on their side. And they don't care about the suffering of their people or even the impact on their industry. That is where they are. Is that unreasonable? Pretty much, but that's who they are. What I think we have to do is reassess where are we, Stuart, and my judgment is it's time now, after weeks of trying to work with them, is to go back to full military operations, keep the blockade on certainly.

We've got about two weeks to complete the operation that we stopped. It's about 25 percent remaining to go. We have twice the combat power in the region that we had when we started, Stuart. So what we're going to do to them is quite serious. The Israelis are now flush again with all the munition shortages they may have had as a result of five weeks of a campaign. Let's go out and finish what

we started. Get that job done. Open up the Straits of Hormuz ourselves and then make a final decision about Kargallen. Well, obviously, Kargallen is not functioning now. We're in control of it because that's their major distribution point. But as a last deed, do we actually destroy it and take all of that down?

That's a decision the president has to make. But I think we've got to reassess and put ourselves on a path to finish the job we started.

Do we have the military power to open the strait ourselves? And if we do have that power, why haven't we used it?

Yes, yes we do have that power. I think because we wanted to see how the blockade worked. Blockade was phase one and obviously it is working. Phase two is opening up the straits itself. I think we do that but we actually go back to combat operations and then open up the straits itself. I think we do that, but we actually go back to combat operations and then open up the straits.

That is the better path here and finish what we said we were going to do from the outset. Look it, we went to a ceasefire. Why did we do that? Because they took control of the straits and we were trying to work out some kind of negotiations. That hasn't worked.

And they're going to ride out some kind of negotiations. That hasn't worked.

And they're going to ride this thing out even longer. All they want to do, Stuart, is survive. Have the regime survive. And they believe eventually they'll recover. And they will be a threat again, maybe not during the Trump administration, but a subsequent administration.

That is how diabolical these guys are. They don't care about their

people. Right now, Iran's foreign minister is in Moscow for talks. You can see him with Putin. I think we got the video. Does Russia want Iran to settle and open the strait? What's

Russia's role here? I think Russia's number one role is to make certain the regime survives, just like China's number one role is here. And listen, we have to accept the fact that this relationship that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea have is real, and they are supporting each other. I mean, Iran put in place in Russia a sophisticated manufacturing plant and built it. The Shaheed drones that they are using by the thousands to hit the Ukrainian people

and its civil energy, these drones that go a thousand miles and are killer drones, one-way drones, the Iranians conceptualized that. They threw Russia a major, major lifeline here for sure. Where is Russia? They provided Iran with intelligence and they certainly want the regime to survive. That is where Russia is.

Good. General Jack Keane, thanks very much for joining us, sir. I know we'll see you Good. General Jack Keane, thanks very much for joining us, sir. I know we'll see you again soon. Thank you.