Former national security official: ‘We might be in for an escalation’ of Iran war

Former White House national security adviser Brett McGurk said President Trump’s Wednesday evening address spelled a potential “escalation” in the U.S.’s ongoing military operations against Iran. 

McGurk, who has served under Republican and Democratic presidents, including Trump, told CNN’s “The Source” after the president’s speech that the U.S. “might be in for an escalation of this war.”

“If we thought we might hear a de-escalatory speech that we’re going to wrap this up in a couple weeks, I actually heard something quite different,” McGurk told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

McGurk specifically referenced Trump’s threat to send Iran “back to the stone ages” if its leaders do not agree to a peace deal in the coming weeks. 

“I think this war is going to continue for some time, that’s what I heard,” McGurk said. 

The U.S. military operations against Iran are in their fifth week, after the Trump administration launched joint strikes with Israel on Feb. 28. 

“I can say tonight we are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly,” Trump said in the address. “We’re going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks; we’re going to bring them back to the stone ages where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing.”

Additionally, McGurk said the president failed to address the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping corridor. The strait, which carries about a fifth of the world’s oil consumption daily, has been effectively closed amid Iranian counterstrikes in the Gulf region. 

“If Iran comes out of this controlling the Strait of Hormuz and being able to meter ships and taking a cut of every ship, they’re going to make hundreds of millions and billions of dollars,” McGurk said. “So, if that is the outcome here, strategically, that is not good if our objective is to contain Iran.”

The price of crude oil has skyrocketed as trade in the strait has remained halted. Average gas prices in the U.S. rose to more than $4 a gallon on Tuesday, raising concerns about the conflict’s economic impact domestically.