ANALYSIS IRAN WAR · DAY 60 US MILITARY

Fox News military analyst General Jack Keane laid it out plainly: the blockade is working, Iran doesn’t actually want a deal, and the White House’s patience is running out. Here’s what that means for what comes next.

Background: The US–Israel war with Iran entered a ceasefire roughly three weeks ago. The Strait of Hormuz blockade remains in place. Talks on a deal have stalled, with no clear interlocutor on the Iranian side. US Marines boarded a commercial ship today attempting to violate the blockade — the 39th vessel redirected since it began.

If you want to understand where the Iran conflict is actually heading — not the diplomatic talking points, not the Truth Social posts, but the real assessment from people who’ve spent careers thinking about this — it’s worth paying attention to what General Jack Keane said on Fox News Tuesday evening. Because the retired four-star general, who has been right about these things before, made it sound like the ceasefire era is drawing to a close.

His core argument is blunt: Iran never wanted a deal. The three weeks of ceasefire talks were, in his view, a stall tactic — designed to let political and economic pressure build on President Trump until he either made major concessions or walked away and called it a win. “The Iranians are miscalculating and underestimating him again,” Keane said. That’s a pointed thing to say on television. It’s also, given the pattern of the last 60 days, hard to simply dismiss.

“The people running this regime — their only objective is to survive and stay in power. They don’t care about the suffering of their people.”

— Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), Fox News

Here’s what makes the current moment genuinely significant: according to Keane, US Central Command has used the ceasefire period to double its military capability from where it was at the start of the war. Israel has also restocked munition shortages. So the pause hasn’t just been diplomatic — it’s been logistical preparation. The next phase, if it comes, will be more powerful than the first.

THE BLOCKADE IS WORKING — MAYBE TOO WELL FOR IRAN TO IGNORE

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent summed it up with language that was notably undiplomatic: Iran’s oil industry is “starting to shut in production.” Gasoline shortages inside Iran are described as the next likely consequence. The country is reportedly running out of places to store oil it can’t sell. Thirty-nine commercial vessels have been redirected by CENTCOM for attempting to breach the blockade. US Marines boarded one just today.

The question Keane is asking — and it’s the right one — is whether economic strangulation alone can actually force a change in regime behavior. His answer is probably not, and it’s worth taking seriously. Authoritarian governments, he argues, don’t capitulate when their populations suffer. They use that suffering as a justification to dig in. The electricity goes out, the gas lines grow, and the regime blames Washington. It’s a playbook that’s worked elsewhere. The blockade causes real pain — just not necessarily to the people making the decisions.

“We need to finish what we started. Let’s complete the military objectives assigned to Israeli and American forces.”

— Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.)

THE REGIME CHANGE QUESTION NOBODY WANTS TO SAY OUT LOUD

Keane raised something at the end of the interview that deserves more attention than it got: the idea that the CIA and MOSSAD should be “working in earnest” to undermine the regime from within and support Iranians who want change. He was careful to note that toppling the regime has never been a stated US objective — but that the regime is now so weakened that a final collapse is plausible, and that the intelligence community should be helping that along. That’s a significant thing for a prominent military analyst to say publicly. It also tracks with what reporters on the ground in Tehran are hearing from ordinary Iranians off camera: that some of them now believe war, as horrific as it is, may be the only path to something different.

None of this makes the coming weeks any less dangerous. If the military campaign resumes, the Strait reopening becomes a post-operation question, not a negotiating chip. European capitals — remember, Iranian ballistic missiles have the range to hit London and Paris — will be watching the next few days very closely. At some point soon, the ceasefire runs out of road. General Keane thinks we’re almost there.