Keane\u2019s comments on the evening of June 20 regarding how to respond to Iran\u2019s downing of a US drone dissuaded Trump from an Iran attack, according to sources close to the president.<\/span><\/p>\n Retired General Jack Keane<\/p><\/div>\n The comments on Trump’s favorite TV news channel made a profound impact on the president, who was \u201cspooked\u201d, according to a report published by\u00a0Politico<\/strong><\/span><\/a> on Tuesday which cited two sources briefed on the president’s reaction.<\/span><\/p>\n Keane, who was making his second appearance of the day on the Fox News Channel, said that Trump, who had speculated earlier in the day that the Iranian action might have been a fluke rather than a deliberate provocation, had a point.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOur viewers may have forgotten, but during the tanker war in the late \u201880s when Reagan did take some action, we actually made a mistake,\u201d Keane said, referring to President Ronald Reagan. \u201cWe had a USS warship shoot down an Iranian airliner in Iranian airspace. Two-hundred ninety people killed. Sixty-six of them were children,”\u00a0claimed the 76-year-old former Army vice chief of staff.<\/span><\/p>\n Keane added, “we made a horrific mistake!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Trump, who had green lighted airstrikes, told NBC News the day after changing his mind on the airstrikes that, given a Pentagon estimate that the retaliatory strikes could leave 150 civilians dead, he didn\u2019t believe the strikes were a \u201cproportional\u201d response to the downing of an unmanned drone.<\/span><\/p>\n It is unclear to what degree Keane\u2019s description of the decades-old incident was in the president\u2019s decision to call off the airstrikes on Iranian targets.<\/span><\/p>\n According to Politico<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, Trump has twice offered Keane the job of Secretary of Defense .<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Retired-General-Jack-Keane.jpg\")
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