Professor Pape: IRAN WAR NOT OVER, Trump TRAPPED

University of Chicago professor Robert Pape has been warning that the United States, Israel and Iran are trapped in an escalation trap. That's also the name of his substack. He'll be having a live briefing over at his substack at 7 p.m. tomorrow. Now with a tenuous ceasefire taking hold, Professor Pape joins us to walk through, you know, how trapped they still are and what the way out of this is. Professor Pape, thank you so much for joining us here again.

Thank you very much for having me. And I really think we need to understand that, yes, this is all fragile, but big things are here in front of us. There's really three issues to discuss. Number one, the trap, why the trap is not over,

and in fact, maybe even tightening. Number two, the change in the world balance of power right in front of us as evidenced by the nature of the ceasefire agreement itself. And then number three, the statement by Donald Trump, the president of states

to end the Civilization in Iran those that will endure that's not going to be forgotten. So the trap maybe I could just yeah

Let's start. Let's start with the trap. Yeah, let's start with the trap. So Are they out of the trap or they is the trap not over yet?

No, the trap is is the trap not over yet? No, the trap is not over. In fact, we may be coming to an extremely dangerous phase of the trap. And the reason is this, number one, US military forces are poised on a razor's edge in the region to strike.

So the trap will start to unwind when President Trump literally removes all the carrier battle groups, removes all the fighters, removes the Marines, just literally pulls it back geographically. Number two, Pete Hegseth, Secretary Hegseth, just before we came on, vocally and publicly said we're going to get that enriched uranium. We're going to get it. Well, we know that that has been a big part of this whole issue.

Iran has enough enriched uranium for between 10 and 16 nuclear weapons. They are now maximally incentivized to have those nuclear weapons. They know if they just go into those caves where the drones are and the missiles are, we can't get, we can't stop them from building that nuclear, those nuclear weapons.

And so you can expect over the next six months or the next year Nuclear tests not just simply now weapons and secret, but this is going to be Incredibly Dangerous for this trap because of course Iran is going to show I think very little sign They're gonna just give up the nuclear weapons now that Donald Trump has threatened to kill 92 million Iranians and probably all 92 million will help build those nuclear weapons,

all of them, including the pro-democracy movement.

And you've obviously studied this for a long time. How viable is it that Iran would be able to reconstitute its missile supply, launchers, and even nuclear, potentially nuclear weapons, just in the next, I mean, we had Midnight Hammer last June and found ourselves back in the same place February 28th. So what is the immediate future look like of Iran's ability to rebuild its military?

Yes, they are building not just dozens, but something like 50 to 100 missiles every single month. That is what happened after Midnight Hammer. They went back to rebuilding, reconstituting, or you could say reloading their guns. And that has been happening on a steady basis, and also producing the drones on a steady basis.

In fact, they were still shipping drones to Russia for Ukraine last fall. So they're producing them, they're shipping them, they're developing them. And so this is, we will have weakened this some, but without the bombs continuing to fall,

even that weakness will disappear. And Iran is making 75 to 100 billion dollars a year in RMB in Chinese banks that they will be able to use for all of these purposes. So they will have the money, they will have the space, they will have the materials. And this is why all this destruction of these launchers, this was just not meaningful. It was always at most a temporary stopgap.

And we will see within a year, this will be back fast and furious. Because now, keep in mind, before the bombing started on Feb 28, you had something like 16 or 20% of the population supporting the regime. Now I'm not saying they like the regime's ideology, but you now have 92 million people. Where is their best security coming from?

Not from Donald Trump. He just threatened to murder each and every one of them. So what are they going to do? They're going to, the vast majority of them are going to help in these programs because they don't want to die.

So this is really quite an extraordinary set of events that have been triggered. And the effects of this are going forward and we will see it. Secretary Hegseth, he sees right away that there has been no disincentive here and he's saying we're going to take the material.

Well, Iran, I think, is not just going to hand it over. This is how are they going to stop the next nuclear threat by Donald Trump? There's only one way now, which is nuclear weapons with a nuclear test and probably several nuclear tests to just rub it into America's face. You nuke us, we're coming

back. And so you mentioned that Trump's saying that you know tonight a great civilization is going to die, that that is going to leave a permanent or at least a very long-term mark on our geopolitics. Can you explain how you mean that?

Yeah, so we need to understand that no president in the history of the United States has made a statement threatening to erase, destroy, kill an entire civilization. Point number one, that is the evidence of genocidal intent that's required in the Geneva Accords to convict for genocide. We need to understand that the genocide accords that we have, they're about the intent to commit genocide. Usually that's the hardest thing to find. It's not the killing of people, it's the intent. Well, President Trump, I don't think there could be

a clearer evidence of genocidal intent than you just saw. Number two, President Trump is one of only a handful of people on the planet with enough nuclear weapons that he would be able to actually execute that threat. So we have 500 Minutemen missiles and they have warheads with 300,000 kilotons on them.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki was only 10, 12 to 22 kilotons. So these are much, much more powerful than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And we have 500 of them. And within 45 minutes, their gyroscopes can be reoriented to Iran.

20 minutes after that, all of those 500 can land on Iran. So I'm sorry to be so blunt, but we need to really understand that what Donald Trump has done here is, it's immoral. It is very likely, I'm not a lawyer, very likely contradict the Geneva Accords, but it's also dangerous because now every American is marked here and this will be wherever we travel

in the world. About to maybe get on a plane to go to London here. This is not trivial. And so what you're seeing is now 92 million Iranians, not just these tiny number of supreme leaders, they're pretty maximally incentivized to show that there's some payback that can come.

So this is really an enormously consequential move by President Trump. And it will do no good that he will somehow maybe take it back or his supporters would say it's just Trump being Trump no, I'm sorry Not everybody not everybody who's a drunk at a bar has their finger on Thousands of nuclear weapons that can be delivered within a matter of an hour or less, as I'm explaining in detail. This is way too consequential,

and this will have tremendous ripple effects across the world. Our allies, the idea our allies will, in Europe, will let us even run NATO. NATO, we need to understand, it is a military organization

where when the American general runs the operation of a NATO military operation It's the American general who controls the nuclear weapons of Britain Do you think Britain is gonna go for that at this? I mean Mike. Yeah, you can see right away Nate so the the rip the consequences here are way beyond What's in it and then in the straight-of-horn moves the consequences are there's a new hierarchy of power Donald Trump just kowtowed to Iran Essentially, there's a new hierarchy and everybody in the Middle East will see that MBS will know there's no Donald Trump cavalry coming to save Him so that's Saudi Arabia. So you're seeing these gigantic consequences

of what's happened are consequences for all Americans. They're consequences for the world balance of power. Iran is becoming the fourth center of world power.

And I wanna steel man this analysis a bit by bringing in the perspective of people who think this is a massive loss for Iran. This is Noah Rothman writing in National Review this morning saying, Iran's central nervous system has been severed as indicated by the Islamic Republic's field commanders attacks on Gulf targets long after the ceasefire was announced.

Its command and control, intelligence, and domestic security apparatuses have been severely degraded. Its Navy and Air Force are gone. Its air defense network and nuclear weapons programs are in ruins. Its petrochemical and steel industries have been badly damaged, truncating two major sources of foreign revenue that sustain the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Keep going here.

The Gulf states are now ensconced in Washington's orbit. America's adversaries in Beijing and Moscow did not much alter the balance in Iran's favor. Tehran's defense industrial base is a smoldering wreck. And it goes on to say it stores of long and short range missiles, drones, and the launchers to use them are dramatically depleted.

What's your response to that, Professor?

My response is this is just not on planet Earth. So this is not even just victory rhetoric and so forth. But we need to understand that what has just happened is Donald Trump has just agreed that yes, ships can pass through the Strait of Hormuz, but only if the Iranian military gives that permission. And that is enormously consequential here. And if it

was the case that all of this was going in the other direction, you would not need any ceasefire from Iran. You would not need any deal from Pakistan. The United States would just simply be the power in the region.

What's happening is the complete opposite of that. And people can just say whatever they want, of course, but nobody's gonna pay that any meaningful attention, meaning they won't actually act on that assumption. They're going to act on the realities that have just been demonstrated by war.

War is often clarifying for the realities of power. Before war, we have a lot of talk. We have a lot of bolster We have basically talking smack. Okay, but once you get into war the Realities start to actually take shape and what you're seeing here is that the reality is That before the war President Trump in the United States was guaranteeing safe passage through the Straits of Hormuz effectively. It had military bases in the region to protect the Gulf states from being attacked and smashed.

During the war itself, none of that was protecting the Gulf states, none of it was moving their oil. And the only thing that is actually now protecting the Gulf states are is Iran deciding not to attack. So if you want your country protected, who are you gonna go to, the United States, or are you gonna go to Iran? Right now, it's pretty clear, you've gotta go to Iran, and yes, maybe you gotta hope Iran will not attack you,

because if Iran decides to attack you, there's nothing the United States gonna do to protect you. This is power politics of the first order. The balance of power in the world and in the region is changing. In the region, it is now Iran at the top of the hierarchy,

not the United States. In the world, Iran is becoming the fourth center of world power. It's not yet as powerful as the United States. I'm not trying to say, and it's emerging as the fourth center as well.

Once they actually acquire the nuclear weapons and do the test, which I'm saying is likely in six months or a year, how would you stop it at this point without ground conquering all of Iran? It will become unmistakably the fourth power

center in the world. So I'm not quite saying they're there yet, but they are emerging in all of the ways that we will credit this here going forward. This debate on what's happening will become clarified because the war is clarifying power.

And to be clear, your point is that the only way to stop them from, within six months to a year, acquiring the nuclear weapons, reconstituting, is boots on the ground.

Yes, but it's not just a few boots on the ground. This isn't going to stop with 10 or 20,000 Americans. And even if we devoted all 1.2 million troops here, this would not be enough. So this is why this was a dilemma. This is why it was an escalation trap. We don't have these hidden secret options if only we would use them.

And then you saw what was the hidden secret option? Nuclear destruction of every living person in Iran. That's where Donald Trump had to go because he doesn't have all these other weapons that has all these other success strategies here. And you see what that has brought.

So what you are facing, we're facing here is a true escalation trap and the off ramp to stage three, which is the ground war is Iran's world power. That's what I've been explaining on my, on my sub stack is there is a branch here and either it's Iran as a new emerging world power or it's the ground war.

And you can see these are the real tensions. literally the ceasefire has clarified what I've been saying on my sub stack just literally in the last week in the briefings, et cetera.

And so how does Israel strategic calculus factor in here? As they went into the war, the strait was open, Iran was isolated and sanctioned. If you listen to Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu privately, he was saying they're many years away from a nuclear weapon. Now they're not isolated, as you said, they're regional and growing power.

Sanctions are currently off, basically, and are likely to come off as a result of these negotiations permanently. And you know, I think it's debatable whether or not they can secretly race for a bomb. But let's I think stipulate that they're more likely, they're in a better position. And people inside Iran are now, and this is a thing people don't understand, before the war, the people in power in the Iranian government were opposed to seeking a nuclear weapon for both ideological and political reasons.

Those people were killed, and people who support seeking a nuclear weapon are empowered. Not that they are in power completely, but they have been empowered. Their faction has been empowered. So how did Israel respond to this? Because the US has its own power center, but Israel has its own interests

that sometimes are aligned with the United States and sometimes are distinct. So how do you see them moving forward in this new arrangement?

So we need to understand that before the war, 40 days ago, there was a balance of power in the region. And if anything, Israel was the emerging hegemon with the hierarchy, with the Abraham Accords, counterbalancing against Iran. Iran, as you said, the supreme leader,

the one we killed didn't really want the nuclear weapons, he had fought was against it. But now you're seeing this shift where even Israel, so Israel was the only country in the region with nuclear weapons. Well, now what you're gonna get

is you're getting this shift. And as I'm saying, you've maximally incentivized not just the regime, but all 92 million Iranians for nuclear weapons here. And so it's extremely likely, maybe over 90% likely, maybe not a hundred, that they will have that nuclear capability.

And what that's gonna do is it's gonna put Israel down on the hierarchy. Now, Israel remains 7 million Jews. It is surrounded by 500 million Muslims. As that hierarchy shifts, this is going to be a dramatic shift against Israel in the region. And so you are going to end up with Israel, you know, has often said, well, they all hate us anyway. Yes, but only a few hundred thousand at most

were ever mobilized to attack Israel. You could now have a much larger pool mobilized. And it's because again, go back to president Trump's nuclear threat. These threats are clearly explaining that for the West and possibly Israel,

they're glad to kill them all. This is not going to work to Israel's security. It's gonna go in the opposite direction. And their nuclear weapons here will not provide that much security because what it's going to do

is even if they use the nuclear weapon, it will only further incentivize not just Iran, but every state in the region to want a nuclear weapon, it will only further incentivize, not just Iran, but every state in the region to want a nuclear weapon here. We're moving to a world that is going to be dramatically worse for Israel's security.

This is one of the things I've been trying to explain to the Israelis. This strategy is not just about, well, we just have to do this for our security. No, it's their own, this is self-defeating for their security.

And I think this will also start to become manifest within just a year or two. Not, I don't think you'll have to wait five or 10 years. This will come pretty quickly because of the change in the balance of power. And there are only 7 million Jews,

unless there are going to be a rush of another 10 million Jews to go live in Israel now, imagine that. You're probably gonna lose seven of the Jews in Israel. You're gonna lose more than you're gonna gain in the next year, and it's precisely because

of the growing insecurity of Israel.

And can you respond to the claim that the response from the response from Moscow and Beijing proves that Iran, Tehran, is increasingly isolated and didn't have its allies rallying around it. What do you, I mean Donald Trump posted this morning that anybody who supplies weapons to Iran is going to be sanctioned. So potentially, I suppose that could include China. Can he sanction China to the extent where Iran can't rebuild?

What do you make of the international response from potential allies?

Well, first of all, Iran is building its own weapons. So Iran was an exporter of drones to Russia, not the other way around. So we need to really understand here, Iran is not Grenada. Iran is not a small state. It's not even Venezuela. I mean, Iran is already a major country here. This is already, it was over 1% of world GDP.

It may be growing that Russia is only 2% of world GDP. We need to put this in some perspective here. So Iran doesn't really need the weapons. It will make the weapons themselves. What it will benefit from is probably the trade and the oil and all the money there.

And also there may be growing technology transfers here, say between China, which has a lot of AI, and Iran. And this will be one of the things that I would imagine could easily happen in the future. So as I explained in the New York Times piece, there are, if with Iran is the fourth center of world power, you have the United States, but Russia and China and Iran are not at each other's odds.

They're against the United States. You don't need a formal NATO among Russia, China, and Iran. They've just structurally incentivized to cooperate in a myriad number of ways, all of which lowering America's power in the world. And this Trump is just trying to do a magician's trick.

Sleight of hand, nothing to see here. We're all good. Well, no, the realities here are coming for all to see and this will just simply be powerful over time. And it will also work to President Trump's domestic political detriment here

and probably in the very near future. I mean, this is, you're now asking all those Congress people who are running for office to hook their wagon in the midterms to somebody who's threatened the genocidal destruction of an entire civilization, led to the rise of Iran as a fourth center of world power So yes, there may be you know 20% here that will or 25 that will stick and ride and die with with Trump But the bottom line is there's not gonna be very much that every politician will know

This is a really really bad horse to be hooked To and I think you're gonna see the GOP itself is gonna have some real questions. It's not the Democrats. The Democrats are gonna wanna keep Trump around for political reasons, maybe not for security reasons.

So that's where I would draw the line. But politically, Trump is like the perfect thing to keep around for the Democrats. It's the GOP who's gonna have the biggest problems here.

I wanna get your reaction to this new quote from Donald Trump which I think you're gonna appreciate. It's Jonathan Karl, he says, I asked President Trump if he's okay with the Iranians charging a toll for all ships that go through the Strait of Hormuz. He told me there may be a joint US-Iran venture to charge tolls. Quote, we're thinking of doing it as a joint venture. It's a way of securing it,

also securing it from lots of other people. It's a beautiful thing. What do you make of that?

Well, again, another statement not on planet Earth. And by the way, there is some jointness to the tolls that's just emerged. Iran has agreed to share some of it with Oman. Why would they do that? Iran is becoming the dominant power in the region.

They can dole out some goodies here to get everybody in line with the new hierarchy. I don't see everybody cottoning up to Donald Trump to do it that way. So again, this is just more evidence that it's just not on planet earth. So you will get statements and they can say what they want, but this, the countries are going to go for their security. The idea that they are going to give up their, their security and their wealth to somehow, um, you know, give Donald Trump a photo op. I think this is not happening.

I think this is just way too consequential what has occurred and will occur. It's not over and will occur.

Also, I was just curious. So if people haven't read it yet, they gotta go read your piece that you had in the New York Times. It was about Iran emerging as a new power. That was a point that you made here last week on the show.

I was curious when, did the Times reach out to you and say, hey, saw you on Breaking Points or LA?

How did that come about?

I'm just telling you, you guys have been the best in terms of allowing me to come on and also space to really explain. And you know, we're doing it regularly. You got it first. I actually started that piece several weeks ago I kept asking me what was the longer-term future and I wouldn't really I didn't want to let it

Tell them yet because we're still going through the middle parts of the stage one stage two stage three but then when I came on with you, I had the piece ready to go and Before I sent it to the New York Times. I decided I'm gonna to do, and no, I said, I didn't announce all that on your show. I didn't say, oh, you know, there's no point. I'm still just Professor Pape, right? So I just wanted to give you the first exclusive scoop.

Okay, and I didn't, and it was really quite a pleasure. It was like an inside pleasure for me because I really appreciate the relationship here and how much this has really, I think, I get so many emails, by the way, the breaking point, the things for breaking points are just the dominant thing in my inbox. And so it's really just been a pleasure. And so, no, I'm the one who's pushed it forward here, but they could see right away that that was, and it's got like an enormous number of reactions

and comments here and so forth and so on, on theirs. And this is, and now you're seeing that just in a few days after I published the piece, clear evidence that Iran is in the catbird seat, as I was saying, and we need to understand, they don't just have money and they're not just talking about ships this is power politics of the first order that is

changing and you're seeing evidence of it right now which is Donald Trump is essentially having to give you know sort of fantasy posts that nobody I'm not even sure he does he even believe who knows but this is that far removed from reality on his side

And I I think with our audience For most people it actually undermines their credibility if they appear in the new york times, but I think in your case We're gonna allow an exception

so

I I am just uh, pleased and honored to to be able to do this and I I I definitely take your point I'll i'll be careful in the future that I don't get sucked into the legacy back here.

That's the trap of the legacy media.

The escalation trap of the legacy media.

Well, Robert Pave is a professor at the University of Chicago. He is doing more live streams. Go check out his sub stack, the escalation trap, Follow him on social media. Thank you so much for your time, Professor Pape.

Absolutely, we'll see you soon. Absolutely, we'll see you soon. Okay, bye bye.