Dick Morris, an adviser to President Donald Trump, told Newsmax on Friday that the president risks being drawn into a prolonged conflict with Iran by overestimating how much U.S. military force can change the regime's nihilistic behavior.
Morris made the remarks on "Rob Schmitt Tonight" after Trump said Friday that U.S. forces had struck military targets on Iran's Kharg Island while warning that further threats to international shipping through the Strait of Hormuz would lead to the island's oil infrastructure being targeted.
Kharg Island is Iran's primary oil export terminal.
Trump said Friday that U.S. forces have "obliterated" military targets on Kharg Island and warned that the oil infrastructure there could be next.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that "for reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island.
"However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision."
Asked for his reaction to the Kharg Island development, Morris said he feared Trump could repeat what he described as mistakes made by other presidents who believed that overwhelming American military power would be enough to defeat adversaries willing to absorb heavy costs without changing their behavior.
"Well, I'm concerned that Trump is falling into a trap that Lyndon Johnson and George Bush 41 and Bush 43 have all fallen into before," Morris said, referring to Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.
He said presidents can lose wars, public support, and reelection prospects when they become stuck in conflicts that do not confirm conventional assumptions about deterrence.
Morris argued that Iran's leaders may not view the war's costs the way U.S. officials do.
"I'm worried that his [Trump's] commitment to the overwhelming military force that we have is blinding him to the overwhelming refusal of the Iranians to acknowledge anything and really to care. The Iranians are bent on achieving their own goals and will not be deterred," he said.
He argued that Washington was, in effect, applying its own standards to the conflict against an adversary that might accept losses the United States would find politically or strategically intolerable.
"I think that really what's happening here is that we're saying that we're applying our own values and standards to this war and saying these prices would be unacceptable to the American people and unacceptable to us, but they're acceptable to the ayatollahs, and they're acceptable to the Iranian leadership," he added.
Morris said that a miscalculation in expectations could leave Trump trapped in a widening confrontation, drawing a historical parallel to the Iraq War.
"And I'm worried that we are getting stuck in Iran in much the same way that Bush 43 got stuck in Iraq," he said.
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Jim Thomas ✉
Jim Thomas is a writer based in Indiana. He holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science, a law degree from U.I.C. Law School, and has practiced law for more than 20 years.
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