The Iran War Expert: Trump Is Making His Biggest Mistake Yet

0:00 Well, a short time ago, Iran said, "No deal.

0:02 Sorry, President Trump.

0:03 Your terms are total garbage and frankly don't make any

0:07 sense." Iran publicly rejected the latest uh US peace deal.

0:10 They will not open the straight of Hormuse,

0:13 calling the US plan completely unrealistic.

0:17 Completely unrealistic.

0:19 But if you listen to like Fox News

0:21 and the US president and you listen to the US media,

0:25 it seems like we were pretty close to a deal here.

0:27 The markets responded.

0:28 Everything was exploding as a result of it.

0:30 Wait a minute.

0:31 Was that all a lie?

0:32 Was that an exaggeration?

0:34 Project Freedom has now been shelved.

0:37 According to the president,

0:38 Trump was forced to stop that after Saudi Arabia reportedly

0:41 refused to allow the US military to use its airspace,

0:44 its air base, a key air base in the region.

0:47 So, there's no way for President Trump to essentially implement Project Freedom.

0:52 So, game over.

0:54 Where are we on this escalation ladder right now?

0:56 How are things getting better or worse?

0:58 Professor Robert Pap is the director of the Chicago Project on Security

1:01 and Threats at the University of Chicago and the author of Escalation Trap

1:06 on Substack and he's absolutely been nailing it week in and week out

1:11 with uh with his assessments and predictions on this and it's based on data.

1:15 Professor Pape joins us once again.

1:17 Great to see you.

1:18 Welcome back to the show.

1:19 Oh, thank you for having me back.

1:21 Um and I wish I could say next time you bring me back I'll have something wrong.

1:26 So please making me feel that great.

1:30 This is a this is a tragic situation.

1:33 It really is.

1:33 So what is your assessment of this latest back and forth?

1:36 The Iranians saying, "Sorry,

1:38 this is completely unrealistic." The president of the United States saying,

1:40 "We're calling off Project Freedom in order

1:42 for the Iranians to save face." I mean,

1:44 that's literally what what they're basically saying.

1:47 Where are we on this escalation ladder right now?

1:50 Uh where we are is we are stuck in the trap.

1:53 and where we are with the negotiations is what I've been

1:56 warning about now for days on Substack on X and so forth.

2:00 Um the fundamental set of issues has not really changed.

2:05 Uh that is since um almost 70 days now.

2:09 Uh when the bombs first fell, our military has been tactically terrific.

2:16 Uh uh I uh taught for the US Air Force.

2:19 I'm not surprised we would be tactically terrific.

2:22 Um and the fact is what you're seeing

2:24 is uh whether it's bombs against leadership targets,

2:27 the bombs are hitting targets killing uh uh leaders,

2:30 whether it's the naval blockade, whether it's the air campaign,

2:34 the military at a tactical level is doing every single thing that we would want.

2:39 This is not a case of bad execution of tactics.

2:43 This is a case of horrible strategy.

2:46 This is a case where we um are going down a road

2:49 where that tactical success is not

2:52 leading to any strategic resolve that matters.

2:56 Uh now just to pick one example.

2:58 Yes, we sunk Iran's navy.

3:01 Remember a month ago we were bragging about how much that was going to matter.

3:05 And now notice it doesn't matter at all.

3:08 And the reason it doesn't matter at all is

3:10 because Iran's growing power is built on two factors.

3:15 One is geography and the other is

3:17 really cheap technology called drones and mines.

3:21 You put those two factors together and you

3:24 have Iran emerging as the fourth center of world

3:28 power because those two factors are more than

3:32 sufficient to tighten the grip of uh Hormuz.

3:36 uh and now what you're seeing is it's more than

3:39 sufficient for Iran's power to grow even during the naval blockade.

3:45 So what happened with Operation Freedom wasn't just

3:47 that this failed and it got cancelled right away.

3:50 is that when Iran struck uh target near um the UAE's key uh pipeline,

3:57 they had a pipeline that was bypassing Hormuz with uh nearly 2

4:02 million barrels of oil a day that was actually getting getting out.

4:06 Once um uh Iran did that, that sent a clear

4:09 message to everybody in the Gulf that um Iran has

4:14 more than enough uh technology and geog geographic power

4:19 in order to hurt them even more than they've been hurted.

4:23 They've been hurt already.

4:25 So, this is why you see um

4:27 the Gulf States themselves uh say, "We're not playing.

4:30 We're not getting involved with this because all it's doing is hurting them.

4:35 it's not protecting their security.

4:37 And another way to put it is we are losing more power day by day,

4:42 including this week.

4:44 And that is really just such a tragic situation,

4:48 but it's not changing because uh President Trump is um uh he

4:53 doesn't have that military option to just reach to that's going to break

4:58 the back of Iran and suddenly we're going to get this uh

5:02 lap of uh good benefits and it's all going to have been worthwhile.

5:07 I'm really sorry to say this this trajectory can go

5:11 on for months and I know nobody wants to hear

5:14 that but sometimes you just got to hear the bad

5:18 news which is um this is going to this is

5:21 unfortunately going to go on for for months uh you

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6:57 You know, some military experts have said that they expect the war,

7:01 the actual combat portion to heat back up,

7:05 which would only make this worse because the United

7:08 States doesn't have an easy win from so far away.

7:11 Uh we mentioned earlier that Saudi Arabia

7:14 now is saying no landing on our airspace.

7:16 That was a key ally that we have alienated.

7:20 Uh so I you know I would like to ask you

7:23 about what would happen if there is a renewal of hot battle

7:28 and I just want to push you a tiny bit because

7:30 the tactically terrific part you know obviously not the school of girls.

7:35 Can we just pull that out?

7:37 Yeah.

7:37 Oh no absolutely.

7:38 I'm sorry I should have definitely and in fact

7:41 that's going to come back to haunt us with oh

7:43 my good no I'm pre Thank you very much

7:46 for giving me that chance to qualify what I meant.

7:49 So, I just I think that as Americans, we should not forget it.

7:52 It shouldn't be.

7:53 I don't mean even when we're doing the best we can,

7:56 we're making mistakes and those mistakes are bad

7:59 are enough to kill Americans down the road.

8:03 So, this isn't just an oops here.

8:05 This is that will be haunting us as there are uh I hope not,

8:10 but future attacks uh against Americans.

8:13 So, let me say two things about the point about stepping up.

8:16 Why is it that we would step up?

8:19 There is an assumption and this is one of the big

8:21 things when I teach for the US Air Force,

8:23 when I teach at the University of Chicago,

8:26 um, and this is an assumption by smart people.

8:28 This is not a dumb person's assumption.

8:30 This is an assumption by generals.

8:32 This is not an assumption just by civilians, which is punishment.

8:36 If we're not a nice guy and we put our morals aside,

8:41 once we hurt the enemy enough, we kill enough civilians,

8:45 we make them unemployed,

8:46 what we're going to do is they will bring them to their knees uh here.

8:52 And that is what you are seeing with um the uh blockade.

8:56 The idea is we're going to crush their economy

8:58 and that's going to bring them to their knees

9:00 or now if we go after the electric power that's going to hurt them more quickly,

9:05 cause the punishment to happen more rapidly.

9:08 And here's the bottom line,

9:09 which is hard in just a short period of time to get across to your audience,

9:14 but uh punishment almost never works and it can be extreme.

9:18 in World War II during I'll just pick

9:21 the most damaging punishment campaign with conventional weapons that ever

9:25 happened was when the United States turned loose our B29s

9:29 on Japanese cities before we dropped the atomic bombs.

9:33 Uh starting in March 1945 until the end of July,

9:37 we picked out 58 cities in Japan and we bombed them

9:41 one after one after one and we killed 700,000 Japanese civilians.

9:48 this did not budge Japan one inch.

9:51 And there's many cases of this.

9:54 Um, and so the problem here is this basic assumption that people think,

9:59 and it's a basic assumption.

10:00 I know because I've been teaching smart people for 30 years.

10:04 It it they need to see the evidence up close and personal.

10:08 That's what's in my books.

10:09 That's what's in um the lectures I give to the military.

10:13 That's what I'm showing them.

10:14 I'm taking them through this uh in detail.

10:19 And quite honestly, they change their mind once they see enough cases.

10:23 They realize, oh, it's not just about we're not nice.

10:27 It really does stiffen the back of the enemy because what it does

10:32 is it makes them want to fight back and kill us even more.

10:37 And that's why that's not going to work.

10:39 Now, why do we go to that?

10:40 We go to that because people like President Trump, he's a real estate guy.

10:46 He has no real experience in military history.

10:48 He's never really sat down and had a even a 20minute version

10:52 of how punishment has really failed in in history uh to do this.

10:57 Um and so this is un we we are run by civilians.

11:00 We have civilian control.

11:01 We never want to give that up.

11:03 Um but this is this is how you end up going down these roads here.

11:09 And unfortunately, if we do launch that bombing campaign,

11:13 what you can expect is the lashing back uh here.

11:17 Um they're going to come at us uh eye for an eye or maybe two eyes for an eye.

11:22 Uh and they're going to hit um the Gulf infrastructure really

11:27 hard and and that may that may play out over weeks.

11:31 And when that happens, then we're not talking about $6 gas anymore in Chicago.

11:36 We're going to be talking about eight or $9 gas.

11:38 this is really going to have that big of a consequence

11:42 because you're when you have the infrastructure of anything damaged.

11:46 It's like in your house.

11:47 Um you can have um a little tiny leak roof,

11:51 but have you ever had the water running

11:53 in your basement where there's holes in your basement.

11:57 Now you're talking not about a $3,000 leak uh roof repair.

12:02 You're talking about a 30 40 $50,000 basement repair.

12:07 That's the difference here when we start taking down the infrastructure

12:12 in uh of the oil and the gas and the fertilizer.

12:15 Um not just simply uh threatening ships and that's where we're headed.

12:20 Couple of uh news items that have just kind of moved over the past few minutes.

12:23 Professor Pape one, I want to get your take on this.

12:26 A new um drone attack and there's been reports

12:28 of an explosions on Kashm Island from on the Iranian side.

12:33 Iranian state media reporting explosions said um they

12:36 were caused by air defenses intercepting several drone attacks.

12:40 Um so where is that coming from?

12:42 The United States, Israel, and then we also just got word from senior

12:48 Iranian officials just a short time ago even before we

12:50 came on the air that says they're not going

12:52 to consider ending this war uh under two under two conditions.

12:56 first all compensation for all damages and the second

13:00 the United States must withdraw from the Gulf.

13:03 So to your point we're sort of trapped.

13:05 I was just on Times of London radio a few hours ago saying

13:08 you were going to start to see the Iranians will likely pull out.

13:11 They want the withdrawal of all forces here which I haven't heard much about.

13:16 So I'm I'm sorry to say that it's not just the generalities.

13:20 It's even the details are actually fully well not fully

13:23 but but but quite predictable in this uh in this situation.

13:27 Now what would that drone attack be?

13:29 Of course you just laid out the possibilities but we do need to recall that um

13:34 we've been talking for a long time about

13:36 seizing certain islands either Kge or right near Hormuz.

13:41 That island is one of the ones right near uh Hormuz.

13:44 Uh we have all the forces there,

13:46 those 10,000 Marines, the special forces, they are there.

13:49 They're on a hair trigger.

13:51 And President Trump has been warning here in his post now

13:55 for uh actually several days uh that he's going to move right away.

13:59 So I can't say for sure.

14:01 This is the beginning of an actual effort to take one of those islands,

14:06 but I would hardly be surprised that that would

14:09 be where this White House would go.

14:12 And it's um it is the escalation trap.

14:15 It's what Iran has just done is uh humiliated yet again.

14:21 President Trump uh who's who's been bending

14:23 over backwards begging for any deal whatsoever.

14:28 And they're not giving them uh what you

14:30 just showed is they're not even giving a hint

14:33 of a fig leaf here because what they want

14:35 to do is they want to wreck his presidency.

14:38 The goal here is, I believe, by Iran,

14:41 becoming more and more revealed by their behavior.

14:44 They don't want to talk to us face

14:45 to face because that would give us too much prestige.

14:48 Uh they're in the driver's seat at every step.

14:51 And the only way you're going to knock them off the driver's seat is with force,

14:56 but even then, I'm telling you, uh that's probably not going to work.

15:01 Uh but that doesn't mean we're not going to try it.

15:03 And we're trying it for the reasons I just said, unfortunately.

15:08 where, you know, and I hate to be so blunt because

15:10 I I'm I'm not trying to be political here, but I mean,

15:13 the bottom line is I I teach people coming in all

15:16 the time who are real estate agents and they're they're uh you know,

15:19 pilots and so forth.

15:21 And they think right away coming in and and these are folks with 120, 140 IQs.

15:26 These are not dumb people.

15:27 And they think right away that oh,

15:29 the only thing holding us back uh say from winning

15:32 in Vietnam is we didn't hit them hard enough.

15:35 If we had just killed more than 900,000, you know, ratcheted up,

15:39 we would have and once they see the real data and I take them through it,

15:44 they not all of them,

15:46 but most of them really come out much more sober and realize,

15:49 oh, this is just not going to work.

15:53 Professor Robert Pap, got to follow his incredible work on his Substack.

15:56 He has been absolut I mean, follow him on X,

15:58 but read his great Substack because he's been nailing it left and right.

16:02 Correct.

16:03 Correct.

16:03 Correct.

16:04 Correct.

16:05 Like you said, hope you'll come back when you're wrong.

16:07 And uh Yeah, please.

16:08 Yeah, I'm I'm there.

16:10 I'm there.

16:12 Maybe maybe the professors Maybe the professor's predictions are causing it.

16:15 Maybe it's causing it.

16:16 Maybe he should just predict the other way.

16:18 Yeah.

16:18 And it'll happen that I' I've tried.

16:20 If you recall, I don't know if you recall, but early in the war,

16:23 I was trying to give all these offramps to President Trump here.

16:27 So So it's now being lost, of course, because we've moved past that.

16:31 But believe me, one of the reasons I've been

16:33 on news I've been on Newsmax almost not every day,

16:36 but my goodness gracious, how much more can I go on?

16:38 Uh I'm trying to talk directly here to uh all sides really.

16:43 Um but I've tried to give a lot of ad

16:45 you say predictions or advice though that was there.

16:48 Had had we just decided uh after the first few days.

16:52 So did President Trump said this was only going to be on Feb

16:55 28 in the opening thing when he's asked only be a couple days.

16:59 We're only got a couple days.

17:00 I've got all these offramps.

17:01 I was trying to give him those ideas.

17:03 Take the offramp then.

17:05 Go now.

17:07 Yeah.

17:07 Yeah.

17:07 Didn't happen.

17:08 And it didn't happen.

17:09 And when you're controlled by the Israeli intelligence operation,

17:12 it's not going to happen.

17:13 Uh, Professor P, great to see you.

17:15 Thank you.

17:15 Well, we can't actually tell if it's his predictions or not.

17:18 So, you're like Schroinger's cat.

17:20 We have to put you in a box.

17:21 Well, I'm Yeah, I'm I'm sorry to say it's what's happening here

17:25 is that it's not the P predictions that are that are driving it.

17:29 It's the reality of the limits of punishment and the fact

17:32 that when a state has great power as Iran does now,

17:37 the idea they're just going to give it up because President Trump's

17:41 going to bamboozle them with some charisma or some tweet or so forth.

17:46 This is not this is great power politics of the first order.

17:51 And when President Trump gets to if if he even goes to meet with President Xi,

17:55 you know, he always said in the campaign that he could stand up to President Xi.

18:00 Well, he's about to find out what that looks like

18:02 because she has got now a lot of cards here uh

18:06 to play with and our we're the ones who are coming

18:10 on bended knee and this is just not a good situation here.

18:14 I'm not I'm not sure President Trump should even go.

18:17 I mean, it's, you know, it's just really,

18:18 it's hard to believe this is going to work out in a positive way.

18:23 You never say never.

18:24 I understand.

18:25 He's gotten reelected and a miracle.

18:27 I really, I've been to his rallies.

18:29 I really understand so much about how um uh you know,

18:34 this has been a miracle here.

18:36 But the bottom line is that this isn't

18:38 just getting reelected here in a democracy.

18:41 We're up against great power politics.

18:44 And what you're seeing is Iran has got us and they're not going

18:47 to let that grip up because they're

18:49 suddenly bored or they don't like their power.

18:53 And look at them.

18:54 They got Kuwait now saying, "Oh my god,

18:56 we can't get Iran's looking at that and they're saying, you know,

19:00 this is mana from heaven for them because

19:02 they want to get American forces out." Well, we got a base in Kuwait now.

19:06 Now you see there it's this is the leverage that Iran is using.

19:12 Yes.

19:12 Well, thank you again for that.

19:14 Uh, it's always a pleasure to read your work

19:17 and to have you explain it to us in person.

19:19 Please come back.

19:20 Okay.

19:21 Thank you very much.

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