Retired four-star Army Gen. Jack Keane assesses the ongoing Operation Epic Fury against Iran on 'Fox & Friends.'Gen Keane: This is a HUGE BACKFIRE... | 9:06
Fox News | 15.1M subscribers | 1,811,776 views | March 20, 2026
Posted on 03/21/2026 9:22:35 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Retired four-star Army Gen. Jack Keane assesses the ongoing Operation Epic Fury against Iran on 'Fox & Friends.'
Gen Keane: This is a HUGE BACKFIRE... | 9:06
Fox News | 15.1M subscribers | 1,811,776 views | March 20, 2026
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YouTube transcript reformatted at textformatter.ai follows.
The YT-generated transcripts vary, so I finally got off my keister and built a doodad to strip the freakin' timestamps prior to the AI reformatting. Yes, I'm having fulfilling twilight years.
TranscriptWelcome back. As President Trump pushes to reopen the Straits of Hormuz, the Marine Corps may be the key. Let's take a quick look at the USS Tripoli and what it's going to be, what it looks like as he comes in from the Sea of Japan. That's the aircraft carrier. What are they going to be deployed to do? They have about 2,500 Marines on board. What are they ready to do to take off?
They could take an island if they wanted to. They have about between 2,500 and 5,000. Where might they be heading? Possibly to this Gulf, not just Car Island, which the president at this hour is considering not only blowing up the military elements of it, which he did on Friday, but actually taking it if he chose to. They thought that was a tactic that would reopen the straits because 90% of the oil that Iran uses and refines comes through there. There's also Kish Island, and there's also another island right over here. That is going to be key.
Real quick about what this actually looks like. This is a look at what Car Island looks like. We've blown up the military installations on it, but notice we've left all this intact. If we took it and we hold it, the negative part about that is it would be a target should any type of ship want to lob anything in there or drones come in there. And what is the area that we're focused on right here? If we open this up, the price of oil drops down, and all the pressure releases. There's a lot of different things to do, and we're still making progress elsewhere in Iran.
Let's bring in retired four-star general, Fox News senior strategic analyst, chairman of the Institute of War, General Jack Keane. General, what kind of progress are we making now 21 days in?
Yeah, well, it's very significant. You heard it from the president yesterday, also from the chairman and the secretary of war and Admiral Cooper, who's the Centcom commander. They're all on the same page. We are on plan and making significant progress here and stripping away what our mission is: all the offensive capability that Iran has, and we're well into that certainly. In dealing with that, we're making certain that the Straits of Hormuz also are getting a focus here for all the obvious reasons, and that's why you see Apache helicopters being applied.
The A-10, for our audience to understand, is a close air support aircraft that's not like the normal fighter F-16, F-15, or F-22. It's really designed to support troops on the ground. It flies at a slower pace. It's got different kinds of munitions on it as well. So that is being employed. And what is happening here is that it'll take probably 10 days, a couple of weeks to make certain that if we bring vessels through the Straits of Hormuz, we minimize the risk significantly. We likely have to put something on those ships also in terms of counter-drone capability, and there are fairly sophisticated capabilities that we can put on there as a defensive measure.
By the way, there was a misunderstanding with the Europeans. They thought we wanted them to do this immediately. I happened to have a conversation with the secretary general, Mark Rutte, and said, "No, we don't intend to send any of our ships down there until we minimize the risk." And I think that certainly opened up some discussions here. Listen, when we ask the Europeans to do something since post-World War II, even though sometimes they may not agree with us, even though sometimes they begrudgingly, what do they finally do? They come along. Why do they do that? Because the United States is an indispensable leader, and they cannot survive in NATO without the United States being a member of it. That's the facts on the ground, and that's how we'll get their cooperation here.
The other thing that's really taken place, and you were reporting on it quite adequately here, is taking down the organizations that support the regime. This is Israel's mission, and you're stripping down leaders in doing that, but also soldiers on the ground that are out there. The Bazid militia is being stripped away right on the streets of Iran. They're being killed day in and day out. What is that producing throughout these security forces and the IRGC? That's the glue that holds this regime together. What is being defined as chaotic decision-making and paranoia running through the ranks of these organizations, and that is good news. It doesn't mean they're going to collapse tomorrow, but what it does mean is they're not the same organization they used to be. And the Israelis are going to continue to pound this organization and strip it away. This is what keeps the regime in power and weakens that to a point where people inside Iran that are close to this regime and maybe even a part of it want to change the leadership and make a deal with the United States. That certainly is an option. Certainly break it so much that it's vulnerable to the protest movement itself. That's a more remote option, but it's out there as well.
The facts are, though, this regime is being stripped away from its weapons and also its organization to sustain itself. And what we got to do is stick right with what we're doing. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. War is fundamentally a test of wills here. And the will of the regime, they want to survive and recover and rebuild, and we're going to break that so they can't do it. And that's fundamentally our will to do that. And all of our leadership is behind this and sticking it to the end to make sure the objectives we assigned ourselves, Brian, are actually achieved.
The Treasury Secretary said yesterday, and he said it again in the Oval Office, said it on Fox Business too, that there are defections among the ranks that they're already finding in Iran. Also, we're finding out, and there's been multiple people saying it, including the president's son, who's his adviser, that there's panic among the leaders with the targeted killings. And the one thing that would bring this war to a close if this continues to happen, they're all hiding separately.
Yeah. And look, the regime appears strong, defiant, certainly in public statements until it's not. And usually these authoritarian regimes, like there, when you start to break them, when they crumble, they crumble quickly. And we'll see. We can't -- we're trying to achieve that end. Certainly, that is not the goal of the United States. The goal of the United States is to make certain they can't attack in the region or attack outside of it. And that's a very achievable goal. If the byproduct of that is this thing breaks apart and we got new leaders to work with, certainly we'll take that deal. And that's what the Israelis are trying to accomplish. Their goal is to set the conditions for a regime collapse, and they're working hard at it.
Plus, the targets they took in the Caspian Sea, those were our targets, and they took those things down to help out there because we're focusing somewhat on the Straits of Hormuz, as I indicated before.
So the 12 Arab Muslim countries that have been targeted by Iran say this: The ministers reaffirmed their commitment to continued intensive consultation and coordination in regard to monitoring developments and assessing emerging issues in a way that ensures formulation of common positions and adaptation of necessary legitimate measures or procedures to protect their security, stability, and sovereignty and to halt the Iranian heinous attacks on their territories. There's some internal communication that there's a fear that attacking the Arab states will backfire. That's from inside Iran. Have you heard that too? And has it backfired?
Well, it has backfired. Who would have thought that those 12 nations would come together and publicly decry Iran and what it's doing? Publicly do that. Remember, many of these nations were publicly not supporting any offensive action against Iran. Privately, they were saying, "Yes, please go ahead and do it," and finally, this has been very frustrating for many of us observing these countries who are allies and partners. We want them to be what they talk about privately among themselves and with us; we want public statements to that, and we're finally getting it here. And what produced that? Iran did that. Iran has united these countries to come out publicly against them finally, and that is a huge backfire on Iran. They made a strategic mistake.
Attacking U.S. bases -- we certainly knew that was coming. Attacking the civilian populations in these countries is what is producing that result there. And that was a mistake the Iranians made. They got little for that. And certainly, what they wanted to do is put pressure on the United States as a result of it to stop the war. That hasn't happened. What they are saying is we're all in and supporting what the United States and Israel are doing.
Yeah. The president's going to see it through. There's no doubt about it. General Jack Keane, thanks so much. Always great. Be sure to like and subscribe for all the Fox News latest on YouTube and catch full shows streaming now on Fox.
In a nutshell:
Iran is bombing Muslim countries civilian population that initially condemned USA and Israel attacking them, now those same countries are saying finish the job. That’s what backfired on the Mullahs.
Wow. Nice job. Thanks!
Thank you for the context. I wasn’t gonna sit through a nine minute video trying to figure out what the headline meant.
All along, the Arab states wanted Iran to ditch the Mullahs, they just didn’t think it was possible.
The Arab states are now more about business, than hating Israel. This is one of Trump’s biggest accomplishments that never gets mentioned.
...there's a fear that attacking the Arab states will backfire. That's from inside Iran. Have you heard that too? And has it backfired?
Well, it has backfired. Who would have thought that those 12 nations would come together and publicly decry Iran and what it's doing? Publicly do that. Remember, many of these nations were publicly not supporting any offensive action against Iran. Privately, they were saying, "Yes, please go ahead and do it," and finally, this has been very frustrating for many of us observing these countries who are allies and partners. We want them to be what they talk about privately among themselves and with us; we want public statements to that, and we're finally getting it here. And what produced that? Iran did that. Iran has united these countries to come out publicly against them finally, and that is a huge backfire on Iran. They made a strategic mistake..."
Wow! 8 posts and the gloom and doom gang has yet to make a post! Perhaps they need to adjust their bot machines?
yep, Iran attacking all the nearby arab countries was the stupidest thing I have seen any country do since ww2
they should have stuck with the poor us, the US is killing our kids and bombing baby milk factories line.
Lol. They will be along shortly. Unfortunately.
The Gulf States with the exception of Saudi Arabia and Yemen (barely a government there!) have historically always been more about business then Islam. Those states have always been merchants first religious radical second if not even further done the priority list! Radical behavior is bad for business particularly when your trade is with other cultures. You can find historically Radical Islamic tracts complaining about them.
I wholly agree.
“The Arab states are now more about business, than hating Israel. This is one of Trump’s biggest accomplishments that never gets mentioned.”
Agreed. President Trump building on his first term accomplishments regarding the Middle East.
I like scientific papers because they are a paragraph of abstract followed by the details of the method and proof. So much of today's news is more like a mystery novel buried in red herrings until you get to the lede at the end.
I was feeding the transcripts to Grok, ChatGPT, Claude, etc and telling them to 1) strip time stamps and 2) create paragraphs. Works well.
Yep, nice to get the executive summary!
That should be at the beginning of every long story or video.
Thanks for posting. I hope all goes well for our troops and mission.
My view is that appeasement does not work with Islamists (Muslims). Obama and Biden sent money to Iran, and the enemy simply became stronger giving us a bigger problem today.
Many nations around the world face the same problem internally. The same dynamics apply. The sooner you move against the Islamist (Muslim) threat in your (our) own country, the better. Appeasement only makes them stronger.
I say “Islamist (Muslim)” because Muslims will generate Islamists.
That’s the gist of it right there.
Yup — but of course, Obama and Biden sent money to Iran with the purpose of aiding and abetting our enemies, while pushing the phony Russia-collusion b*******, confiscating mobile phones, raiding private homes, putting a “$5 for pardons” over the autopen machine...
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