President Donald Trump presents Medal of Freedom to Gen. Jack Keane, ret. on March 10, 2020
Some Fox News figures have continued to agitate for the Trump administration to resume bombing Iran amid continuing, if unclear, negotiations to maintain the tenuous ceasefire.
On April 8, the United States and Iran entered into a ceasefire agreement, though the countries have exchanged low-level attacks in recent days. On May 3, President Donald Trump announced a new phase of the campaign, dubbed Project Freedom, which would provide some U.S. support to ships stranded in the Strait of Hormuz, though the degree of its implementation has been difficult to discern. Separately, the Pentagon has reportedly drawn up strike plans that would likely include bombing Iranian infrastructure targets, acts which could constitute war crimes, should Trump decide to carry out new attacks.
Top Fox News figures have supported the war since even before Trump launched it on February 28 alongside Israel, a position largely unchanged across the network in the ensuing months. As recently as April 29, Fox personalities were calling for Trump to restart the war, a drumbeat that has only gotten louder since.
On May 8, Fox News senior security analyst Jack Keane, a longtime supporter of attacking Iran, called for Trump and Israel to escalate their offensive campaigns.
“In my judgment, I think we got to see reality for what it is,” Keane said. “We should go back and execute Project Freedom, take the Strait of Hormuz away from the Iranians, secure it and open it for navigation and also at some point get some assistance in doing that.”
“And then we have to unleash the Israelis," Keane continued. “They have a very comprehensive bombing campaign that they’re going to conduct that deals with leadership, it deals with energy, it deals with all the weapons systems we still have to go through.”
“We would be able to do some selective bombing in support of returning to combat operations, while the main effort for the United States would be to open up the Straits of Hormuz,” Keane added.
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, a major Iran war hawk, also argued that the United States and Israel should resume bombing Iran in lieu of continued negotiations.
“It seems as though the Iranians feel like they survived and will emerge stronger currently,” Kilmeade said. “And the fact is they haven’t gotten back to us on the 14-point plan in two days.”
“I think they’re almost daring us to resume strikes,” he continued. “At which time, we understand that there’s a plan in place for Israelis to hit a lot of locations — they have more air power actually than us in the region. And I think we could handle the strait and maybe tell Iran who’s really in charge. Perhaps we need that."
Kilmeade’s co-host, Ainsley Earhardt, agreed.
“I like what Gen. Jack Keane said: Take it — take the strait, open it, and unleash the Israelis,” she said.
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters
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