Four-star general reveals Iran's Ayatollah isn't cutting peace deal as Trump's countdown begins
Iran isn't cutting a U.S.-brokered peace deal with Israel because its leaders are confident they can rebuild its nuclear program even if it's wiped out, a retired general says.
General Jack Keane, the former Vice Chief of Staff to the U.S. Army, told Fox News that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei believes the country will be able to restart its nuclear bomb with relative ease after the ongoing conflict with Israel ends.
The U.S. has not joined the conflict so far. President Trump says he'll decide whether to do so in the next two weeks, after urging Iran to halt its nuclear bomb building.
'The nuclear enterprise is vast, and it is resilient,' Keane told Fox News. '(There are) multiple sites, centrifuges, so you can spin up enriched uranium. They did that to survive.'
Keane said the Ayatollah has 'never made a deal' because 'he has built an enterprise to survive an attack' that he believes is strong enough to withstand airstrikes even if President Trump decides to join the conflict.
'He believes they can absorb an attack, survive it, recover from it, and then rebuild. That is where this guy is,' he said.
'I don't see him, in the near term, making a deal here whatsoever.'
Keane, a four-star general, was likely referring to Iran's nuclear bomb factory, which is called Fordow and which sits deep under a mountain.
The United States' most powerful 'bunker buster' bomb has been touted as a possible match for the Fordow facility, if President Trump decides to join the conflict at the end of a two week deadline he's just announced.
Other experts believe a tactical nuclear weapon would be needed. Using a nuclear bomb in an act of war is a huge taboo unbroken since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
"I don't see him in the near term making a deal": @gen_jackkeane on the Ayatollah's approach pic.twitter.com/yoF0qbfnhR
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) June 20, 2025
The general said for Trump to succeed, he needs to 'take the whole enterprise down' and wipe out the nation's top leadership and military capabilities, after Israel significantly weakened Iran in recent weeks.
'Look, Israel have destroyed all 70 of their air defense batteries, all of them. Air force, gone. The 12 nuclear sites, damages or destroyed. Then, leadership (is) decapitated, military and nuclear scientists. They can replace nuclear scientists, but in the near term, major problem.'
Iran has long vowed to obliterate Israel at the first chance it gets, with Israeli intelligence beginning their bombing campaign earlier this month over fears leaders in Tehran were just months off completing a nuclear weapon.
World leaders and many military strategists have urged Trump to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis, fearing that any direct US intervention could spiral into all-out war.
Trump has warned that if Iran don't agree to stop their nuclear weapons program within two weeks, he will commit US forces to join Israel in the conflict.
Iran's allies include Russia and China, meaning the stakes for the current conflict could not be higher.
Trump has instated a two-week deadline to make a decision, primarily whether to use a 30,000lb 'bunker buster' bomb to penetrate Iran's underground enrichment plant in Fordow.
But Keane, who was heavily involved in the Iraq War, said he 'absolutely' believes Trump should use the bunker buster, saying 'the alternative is unacceptable.'
He admitted that using the weapon could face challenges as we've never actually done' it before, but insisted 'that doesn't mean you don't do it.'
Keane's urging of Trump to use the 'bunker buster' bomb comes as experts say the weapon is one of the only tools in the US military arsenal that could take out the Fordow enrichment site.
The 30,000lb bomb is the largest non-nuclear bomb at America's disposal, and can smash through several hundred feet of earth, with the Fordow site said to be located up to 300ft underground.
The GBU-57A/B 'bunker buster' bomb, as it is known, is arguably the top military reason that Israel wants the United States to join its air campaign against arch-foe Iran.
The US designed and built the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) and remains the only nation to possess the bomb, as well as being the only country with warplanes capable of dropping its formidable payload.
Crucially, it is also the only weapon widely believed to be capable of smashing through Iran's deeply buried nuclear facility at Fordow.
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