Syria needs Iran and Russia's approval to use chemical warfare: Gen. Keane

The Trump administration issued a strong pre-emptive warning to Syria’s Assad regime about using chemical weapons against the Syrian people.  Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), Fox News military analyst, discussed the warning telling the FOX Business Network’s Dagen McDowell, “Any kind of stern message, they know that we are going to react to this.”

Keane then weighed in on Iran and Russia’s influence in the country.

“The Iranians are running the war in Syria.  The generals are on the ground, they control ground operations and they direct all air operations.  The Russians are in total support of that.  So if he is going to use chemical weapons again it would only be done if the Iranians want it to be done and with the permission of the Russians.”

According to Keane, if Syria does use chemical weapons again, the U.S. should have a strong response.

“If that happens again, what I believe our president should do as commander-in-chief, there are six airfields that are operating in Syria for the Syrian Air Force and we should take all six of them down.”

When McDowell asked if the U.S. should conduct a pre-emptive strike, Keane responded, “I don’t think we should do that until we know for sure they are going to do it.  Now, if we can catch them in the act of doing it, we should do that.”

But when McDowell asked about the potential fallout with Russia and Iran if the U.S. conducted a strike against Syria,

“We should not be concerned, this is the thing that paralyzed President Obama for eight years, he always was paralyzed by the fear of what you’re talking about here, adverse consequences, those consequences were always on his mind.”