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Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg on Monday called for U.S. ground troops in Iran as well as a new American negotiating team in the conflict.
“Look, there’s about five things we ought to be doing right now, because the war has changed right now in Iran. One on negotiations, I would change out our negotiations team,” Kellogg said on Fox News’s “America Reports.”
“You do not — have — or need real estate guys to be talking about negotiation during the middle of a war, and when you do bring a negotiations team back, it ought to be a real hardcore son of a b—- that is just sitting on the ground and can really do it well,” he added.
Kellogg later suggested that “airstrikes alone” would not end the conflict, which has been unpopular with the American public in recent polling.
“You’re going to need ground troops to do something. That doesn’t mean they go all the way to Tehran,” Kellogg added. “Then I’m not advocating that at all. But you could take a couple key strategic targets, that gives the president leverage and controls their economy.”
Nearing its five-month mark, the war in Iran has strained the U.S.’s relationships with historic allies, stressed the global economy and driven up oil and gas prices.
Fighting has recently reignited, with U.S. forces wrapping up nine straight days of strikes against Iran on Sunday.
The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Monday said two “deviant” oil tankers blew up after navigating the Strait of Hormuz. According to the IRGC, the ships exploded following attempts to enter and exit the waterway through an “unsafe route,” Iran’s state-run Fars News Agency reported.
On Monday, the Pentagon identified two U.S. soldiers who died in an Iranian attack in Jordan last week, 1st Lt. Tyler Feehan and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales. Both Feehan and Gonzales were killed in action, the former on Saturday and the latter on Friday.
A senior administration official told The Hill on Monday that Kellogg, who was President Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine until earlier this year, “is openly criticizing the President’s decisions simply because he couldn’t get his way, and it is sad he has chosen to go down this sad path.”
“It’s a reason why he no longer serves in the Administration,” the official added.
Updated at 10:56 p.m. EDT.
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