Gen Jack Keane: That is RECKLESS behavior

President Trump's blockade is officially in effect. He says the ceasefire with Iran is holding well. Watch this.

I would say it's holding well. Their military is destroyed. Their whole navy is underwater, you know that. 158 ships are gone. Their navy's gone, most of their mine droppers are gone. We have a lot of people as you know at 10 o'clock tomorrow we have

a blockade going into effect. That'll be 10 o'clock tomorrow other nations are working so that Iran will not be able to sell oil and that will be very effective.

Retired 4 star General Jack Keane joins me now. General, what advantage does a blockade give us?

Oh, it's significant. I mean, what we're doing obviously is tying up all of the oil that Iran is exporting to other countries on different flagships. So zero amount of export oil will be coming from Iran, and that's already in effect as we speak. That has dramatic impact on them for sure.

I mean, just coming out of the major distribution point at Karg Island, that's 90 percent plus of their oil distribution just coming out of that one place and none of that is going to get through. So what has happened here is Iran really had some momentum when they shut down the Straits of Hormuz. We went to a ceasefire. They wanted to stop the war. And President Trump assessed this. And I think the timing is extraordinary. Negoti negotiations fall apart. And I think, you know, Stuart, I think the Iranians miscalculated. I think they hold too much stock in what they achieved with the Straits of Hormuz.

I don't want to minimize what they achieved in shutting it down. They did that. But they thought it had further implications into the mindset of the president and our negotiators. I think they believed when they came in there that we would likely be willing to make some concessions to them because we're in a desperate situation. And that's not the case as you know. I mean the president said it publicly and and certainly those negotiators

he told them privately he wants everything. And I'm convinced they they obviously call him back to him to get feedback on what was on the table and he said whatever they wanted us to give up he was saying absolutely not. So we didn't get everything and so there's no deal. And it's interesting also while we're on the subject of the negotiations, Galibov kept running out and going back and talking to somebody and I think that somebody is likely, don't know for sure, is the IRGC leader, Ahmed Vahidi.

He's not the one who's in charge. We killed the first one, we killed the second one. But this guy is definitely a hardliner. And if that's the case, the IRGC is running Iran. That's for sure. But this is huge momentum.

We've taken it all away from the Iranians. And we'll see. Look at the Iranians. The thing about war, it's fundamentally a test of wills. And your opponent always has options here. And I think we just forced a fumble.

And we got the ball back, is where we are right now. But the Iranians have options. I mean, they can stalemate and sweat us out and say, well, oil prices and the economy means more to us than it is to them, and maybe we'll force the Americans into backing off of it. Number two, they can test it. They can run one of their oil ships down there and see what we do. I know what we're going to do. Our Marines are going to board it and park it. That's what we're going to do. Or they can take some

kinetic actions to it.

Yeah. I'm sorry. I just want to get to this because Senator Mark Warner, he says the U.S. would need thousands of troops on the ground if we want to seize Iran's uranium. Just listen

to this again. This administration, you know, literally days into this war of choice and we need to continue to remember that. Getting rid of these enriched uranium, these are canisters, a thousand pounds, very volatile. It would not be some simple operation. It would take 10,000 troops on the ground guarding a perimeter. We'd have to send special operators in and the Iranians could then bomb their own facility potentially trapping our troops and this

volatile uranium would be very very dangerous.

Is he right it would take 10,000 troops and second tier would the present do that?

Well I'm glad he has nothing to do with planning military operations. Listen, I respect the skill sets it takes to be a politician, but he doesn't know what he's talking about now, all right, in terms of how we would conduct a military operation. I mean, that's pretty reckless behavior to put 10,000 troops on the ground so the Iranians can just fire at will on those 10,000. First of all, if you had a secure area, you don't need that many troops to do it,

given the fact that we own the airspace, all right? So we're not worried about a ground attack. The only thing, if we were on the ground for any length of time, and I'm not suggesting this isn't a complex operation. It certainly is that. But if you're going to be on the ground for any length of time, the threat isn't other ground forces.

We can handle that because we have all the air power up there. They would be right there. You know, it would be drones and rockets and missiles. That would be the threat. And how do we deal with all of that? But listen, if we're going to conduct an operation like that,

believe me, the CENENTCOM commander, Admiral Bradley, and the SOCOM commander, who would likely provide the forces, would not make a recommendation to the president unless they believe the risk is acceptable in terms of the mission we're trying to achieve and the risk to our troops.

I'm not saying there wouldn't be risk to our troops. I'm not saying there wouldn't be casualties. There could be. Anytime you get in a fight, there could be casualties. But listen, so you understand, Stuart, there are other ways to get the uranium. One way is to take control of Karg Island or even threaten the control of Karg Island

and tell them, voluntarily give up the nuclear enrichment program. Or we're going to take all of your oil away from you. The whole 90% plus we're going to own it or we're going to destroy it one or the other. So that is another lever that we have that wouldn't risk any troops whatsoever. That's fascinating. Iranians have a choice to make obviously whether they would comply or not.

Iranians have a choice to make obviously whether they would comply or not.

It's always great talking to you General, you know what you're talking about.