Robert Pape: Iran 'NEW WORLD POWER', NATO DEAD

Well, as we mentioned earlier in the show, Donald Trump plans to address the nation on the Iran war with a quote update at 9pm Eastern live tonight. Now we're joined once again by Professor Robert Pape, who's been on with Crystal and Sager, and is of course author of the Escalation Trap sub stack, where he's going to be doing a live briefing on Saturday and wrote actually just like nine hours ago, according to Substack. I don't know if you got enough sleep Professor Pape that Trump may say the war That's not enough. Trump may say the war is over. He's wrong Professor Pape Of course is professor of political science at the University of Chicago. You can and should follow the escalation trap on

Substack. Professor, thanks so much for joining us

Thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you very much for having me. You accommodated my schedule here. I really appreciate that. And I'm also delighted to speak to the audience here again, which is so crucial. Your audience is so important.

And I just couldn't thank you enough.

Well, thank you. And we wanted to start with this clip of Benjamin Netanyahu talking about what Israel's goal for the region might be after the war, obviously, to nuclear or one nuclear nation potentially trying to thwart another nuclear nation from growing, which has been the focus of your entire career, Professor. So let's go ahead and roll the clip.

This is the guarantee for our future. We are working on transforming Israel into a super nation in the region and globally. And we were able to do so thanks to our soldiers and our captains and all those who fought and those who died. And of course, thanks to your solidarity and your steadfastness.

So Professor, the title, as I just read of your latest post on the escalation trap, is Trump may say the war is over, he's wrong. Is this why you think if Trump tries to say the war is over, he's wrong?

Yes. What we're going to see, and your listeners will know, I talked about three stages. We've done stage one. We're stage two. Stage three is the ground power dilemma.

Well, if we don't go to the ground war, that's not de-escalation, as many people would hope. It's going to be a stage four. There's going to be a continuation, and that's what I'm going to explain here and also more later. So, stage four, and this is where Netanyahu is really wrong, is about what will be the new center of world power coming out of this conflict. Netanyahu said it's going to be Israel. He's wrong. It's not going to be Israel. And you can already see who it's going to be today,

which is Iran is not just controlling shipping the way people are describing oil prices the way people are describing. Iran is controlling so much world oil, so much, and oil is so critical to world Power that Iran is emerging as a new

global center of power So, let me just explain this a moment. So before the war 33 days ago. There were three Centers of world power we described we discussed the u.s Russia and China now Why was Russia even in that mix because it had 11% of the world's oil And of course it uses that for military purposes

well Iran now has double that amount of world oil, more than any other country on the planet, and what that's gonna mean are 75, 100 billion dollars a year more to put into military, that nuclear enrichment is now more likely than ever to become nuclear weapons and over time as the months and the years go on which I know we're Having a hard time coming to grips with the reality that's occurred here

Yeah

is that this is going to create a new center of world power and Dwarf Israel is this as you can see right away for all of our lifetimes oil has been so critical And it's not just oil. Of course, it's gas. It's the energy. It's the fertilizer This is what is what Iran has now as a chokehold on the world But it's 20% and there's no way you're gonna make up for that in the next three or four years.

Even if you start drilling now, it will take that long. So Iran is coming out of this. And we've never seen this in our lifetimes, a new world power center created in a month? That's what's on issue here. So whatever President Trump says tonight,

whether he wants to go forward, ground war or not, all of this we don't know and he may not even know. Let's face it, he's been all over the map. The reality, I deal with the realities here. And what we are seeing is escalation reality with strategic consequences.

Those aren't over because President Trump thinks he's gonna stop and go to Mar-a-Lago and just cut himself off from the world. No, the world will have to live now with this new center of world power. And there's no good way to deal with it.

This is why I was so opposed to this war with the modeling I've been explaining. This is not like this is, this will end up being worse than Vietnam, maybe not in battle deaths. So the 58,000 dead that would, that took 10 years, however, so we're haven't been into this 10 years yet, but it's because of the consequences. There was no way Vietnam was ever going to become

a center of world power. It had no nuclear enriched material. It was not going to do shocks. This one was always fundamentally different. And I realized most of the world would not know that. Why should they know that? They're not modeling this for decades. This is what was always coming. And that's why I said this is the horns of a dilemma. It's a branching where we're at. It's not a, well, now that we are going to not go forward with the ground war, we can

all live happily ever after. Oil prices are going to come down. Iran's just going to give up the power that I'm describing. When was a country ever give up any power, let alone world power?

Well, the United States.

This will be my new discussion points going forward. And that's why I so appreciate coming on your show

to share it, you got it first, basically an exclusive. So, I mean, your answer to the question of what country would ever just voluntarily give up power might be the United States.

Oh, yeah. Well, that's what you can... so all that talk of America first, okay, I've been trying to argue for America. I'm not using Trump's language. I'm not supporting that, but I'm just pointing out that was always cheap sales talk cheap sales talk so what you're getting now is the reality sir, and what you are seeing is as the the four centers of power now there are now four America's the one going down Russia going up

China's gonna be going up Iran's going up who's going down

And so we have a little breaking news on this nine o'clock event that Trump is having So when we get your reaction in in real time So he he did one of these very brief interviews with Reuters about what he's going to talk about he told Reuters he's going to express quote-unquote my disgust with NATO and it sounds like it's going to be significantly a broadside against NATO and he said he's quote absolutely considering withdrawing US forces from NATO. So you've spent decades, he says,

modeling these the escalation trap when countries get involved. I don't know if you've ever had a model with this many variables. Hmm. Well, well actually so this

How this way your audience is not familiar with this, but that's not it is the case sir that we deal with this So let me explain first your audience. What is NATO? Okay, NATO is not just a political club, a talking club of diplomats. It's a military organization with the American general at the top who gives orders to the other countries, militaries. That's what NATO is. Okay. It's a command structure right now. Today, sir, even though that still is in place,

do you believe for a second the British army is going to follow General Cain, the American just imagine if General Cain said, British army, you go X, that's just not happening. So what I would just say is we've talked about the fading away of NATO for years. We're not at that point anymore. NATO is dead. NATO is in the morgue and the obituary

is what's being written now. So it's already dead. There's no way the Europeans are following the American generals here. And I'm sorry to say, even if it's a democratic president comes in, they're not, we've elected Donald Trump twice now.

The idea that Europeans are going to obey orders from American general, not happening. So this is really gonna have also major consequences because we never had to worry about this problem of, you know, these little dustups like on Greenland. Well, this may be a future here, and it's a horrible future,

but I'm just pointing out what Donald Trump has done here, this is much larger consequences, and the oil shock and the energy shock is already astounding. I'm explaining there's a stage four here, and this is even as astounding

as it's been already in 33 days, my gosh, the next six months, we're gonna be, this is gonna be the reverse of the end of the Cold War. The end of the Cold War, we shot up like a rocket, like a rocket.

Those 90s, Bill Clinton's presidency, oh my goodness, those, yeah, goodness, those days, yeah, everybody, yeah, we all know what, boy, do we want those days back, right? Well, this is the other way around. We're now on the other end of this, going the other way. 40 trillion in debt, oh my gosh, alien, I mean, the amount of trouble here, that's why we're, I'm so appreciative, again, just talking to your smart,

it's my favorite audience to talk to. It's like being at the University of Chicago. You guys, it's just, I mean, it's just that,

that's terrific. Don't gas them up too much, they're gonna get big heads.

But yeah.

Well, I'm just trying to point out, and it's you guys, and it's also the other folks here. I mean, you're asking really the right questions.

And on that point, I wanted to ask about this thread that you posted yesterday. You mentioned at one point in this thread, watch the deployments. As US forces move to secure the Strait of Hormuz, the region is already splitting. Iraq is hedging, Qatar and Oman are staying neutral, Saudi and UAE are growing more alarmed. So you posted that again, according to X, 22 hours ago this morning, we were told to the news that-

That's right. I came right out of class. And by the way, so I'm teaching here in just a few hours. And essentially all my students are asking exactly, and my class are bursting, okay. They're all asking all of this. So that's why these thoughts are there, because I'm already talking to my students about these. So what you are seeing, oh go ahead.

Well I was just gonna say, we woke up this morning in news that Amazon had been hit in Bahrain. And that the IRGC is threatening all of these major defense contractors in the Gulf region. And I was curious from your perspective, professor, that seems like very obvious tripwires around the entire region where you could end up

seeing boots on the ground to potentially defend those major defense contractors.

Well, you're seeing this, we're on the horns of the dilemma. So you're seeing right there, do we defend it or do we go away? You see, this is what we're looking for here And I suspect whatever President Trump says tonight

Two weeks from now. We'll see where we're really at. That's why I say follow the deployments right now We have another carrier coming to the region. We have more special forces being mobilized We have the additional Marines coming. Until those forces literally reverse course in the water, and the Marine muse, that big hunk of metal ships with all those equipment, go back to Japan and go back to California, and we start pulling out forces

from the region and moving them to other parts of the world. This is not a reality the rhetoric here We've got to see that's what that deployment is And also what you're also seeing is the second point I made is that Iran I warned before that as Iran's Horizontal escalation would continue you would see the fracturing of the Gulf States. That's exactly what you're seeing. And Bahrain, I explained in that tweet here, there's three groups in the Gulf States now.

There's those already bandwagoning toward Iran, that's Iraq. There's those that have been in the middle, that is Oman and Qatar, and they're desperately trying to duck and avoid any getting, but they're in the middle. They're not pro-America now.

And now you have the others and Bahrain, UAE, these have been focused here. They have some Shia, they have, there's real reasons to pressure those particular states. And that's what you're seeing Iran doing they're being extremely smart about how they're Fracturing those three pools and what they're doing is breaking the coalition We're not growing that we just talked about the end of NATO We're our coalition's falling apart here and they're picking up pieces and this is the problem

Russia will pick up some more pieces Russia will pick up some more pieces. China will pick up some more pieces. So this is what we are going to see more of. And I don't know if six months from now, President Trump may decide he wants to keep American forces and bases there. He may have to fight to keep them there, just where they are today.

So I don't mean to grow. I mean, Bahrain has a big base. They may throw us out and we may have to say, well, we'll have to topple the Bahrain government to keep that. Are we really gonna do?

These are the choices President Trump has put us in now. This is not where we were 33 days ago.

You had written something that was kind of a disturbing insight, which cuts against, I think, a lot of the conventional thinking about how this unfolds. And I think the markets in general seem to think, OK, this can't go on because it's going to destroy the world. That the longer this goes on, the more energy volatility we have and by volatility actually it's just heading straight down it's not even volatile it's

just down. Trump will back off, declare victory because the source of the problem, the source of the economic crisis is what Trump's doing so he'll remove himself from that therefore removing the source of the economic crisis is what Trump's doing, so he'll remove himself from that, therefore removing the source of the instability and the crisis and we'll be back to normal. That seems to be the market's assumption, which is why they haven't completely bottomed out. Your argument is that no, this instability actually kind of feeds the cyclical trap

itself. Can you walk us through that a little bit?

Cuz that yeah, so the trap is I've explained it so far here And let me just repeat that because it's very helpful is at each of those stages. I describe The Americans are tactically successful, but strategically failing and it's the failure and the counterproductive, we're in a worse position at each stage, that sucks us to go deeper into the trap. What I'm adding now is a new layer and that's what you're noticing and thank you very much. Again, smart identification of the newness here.

What I'm adding is, and I'm really talking to JP Morgan, I'm talking to Jamie Dimon, I'm talking directly to those people even though they may never have heard my name.

Who by the way, the IRGC threatened on that list yesterday. I was gonna say JP Morgan was on the list of defense contractors that the IRGC said are now fair game in the region. Yes, that's exactly right. I'm trying to explain why their assumption

is fatally flawed for their business. I don't just mean like cocktail chatter, okay? I'm trying to go to the heart of the matter. And the heart of the matter is they're assuming that the root of this can be snagged out by just simply Trump walking away.

And I've heard Jamie Dimon yesterday talking about this on Fox. He's just wrong. It's just flat out wrong. And the reason is because we have created, through no intention, but we've created a new center of world power. And Iran is not going to stop trying to grow that power.

They're going to want to exert more influence in the Persian Gulf. And that's what you're seeing in those Amazon attacks. And absolutely, they're going to want to knock JP Morgan and Amazon out. That's Western imperialism as they see it. And they have a lot of power. And especially as if Trump pulls back And they have a lot of power, and especially if Trump pulls back,

they will have even more power. Then they also have growing power in Asia. I've been talking to Bloomberg Hong Kong, others in Asia. So much of the oil from the Middle East goes to Asia, and Asia right now is in a supply crunch, not just a cost crunch, but there is in the Philippines,

there's 200 million people in a supply crunch here, almost the size of the United States in Asia. This is generating enormous power for Iran and also in relation with China, they can do more and more together. And so what you're going to see here

is this fundamental assumption that this can all just be blown over and all we have to do is we're gonna apologize for killing the Supreme Leader and yeah, Trump was stupid and then we're all gonna admit that it was just Trump here. We're just gonna blame Trump, blame Netanyahu

and Iran's gonna just give up world power No, and who's gonna pay the price the businesses JP Morgan Amazon This is gonna have mega effects because they're not up for if they want AI Iran's gonna get AI from somebody It's China and I spent two weeks in China last June touring the AI

factories and and and shops on this on the robot shop floor to see for myself how the

BYD's and so forth are being made and oh my goodness gracious China has

enormous leverage here that it can share that AI with Iran and so this idea that Iran needs JP Morgan, I don't know what, I'm just trying to explain. This is the fatal flaw in that thinking.

And we have other, real quick, other breaking news. The manufacturing numbers are out for March and the actual is plus 7.8 points over the consensus. The highest number since mid 2022. The actual is plus seven point eight points over the consensus The highest number since mid 2022. This is oil

Already oil prices already

Funneling their way into manufacturing prices, which is just an another way of saying you're getting poorer And meanwhile professor stocks the markets just opened about an hour ago as we're speaking here in the CNBC headline, is stocks are higher to start the month as optimism around Iran war ending grows.

Well, sure, they haven't caught up to the reality that I'm explaining. They still think Iran is 4% of the world's oil. They're operating as if we were 33 days ago and all that's changed is bombing. So we end bombing and everything goes back to 33 days ago. There's just a flaw here. I don't know quite how to explain it.

There's a reality and that reality is Iran is a world power now. And as each week and month goes by, this will become more and more evident. And at some point markets will catch up. I mean, markets are often behind. I mean, I always say,

Washington is three to six months behind and markets are typically behind more than that. That's how you get the balloons. So otherwise you would not have those balloons popping. So the fact the market,

that's just another group of smart people. I deal with smart people all the time. Everybody I deal with is at the University of Chicago is actually really smart. So this is not about smart versus not. This is about how to understand the reality

that we're seeing versus the hopes that we also all have.

Well, that sucks.

I'm sorry to say it, but you're allowing me, this is why I keep complimenting you folks, you're allowing me to express it, you'reing you folks. You're allowing me to express it You're following you're seeing what's new at each week because the world I'm not just responding to you know Yesterday's news. I'm trying to explain what to expect in the coming weeks, and I don't think that

United States pulling back equals de-escalation in the way we would understand it, which is the economic shock here. Iran is going to squeeze countries as they go through. And I suspect they will never let a drop of oil from Saudi Arabia or UAE past the Strait of Hormuz here because they want to topple those governments.

And I think that's why Saudi Arabia is talking to Pakistan, because Saudi Arabia is looking for who's going to help me and Pakistan's friendly to Iran. So why is Saudi Arabia making these relationships with Pakistan here, they need a backup in case Uncle Trump bails on them. And who would, yeah, you can see right away, you're not counting on Trump.

So what are you doing? You're looking for a backup plan. And Pakistan may not be your best bet, but it's probably your only bet here to help. MBS has got a real problem. How is he going to his regime survive? In this situation where he's lost that much oil revenue, so he can't use money as much as he could before

Iran is gaining power These are the real consequences that i'm explaining by the new center of power and it's just not likely to change. I just don't see how Iran, even if you got a new regime in

Iran, why would they give up all this power? And Saudi Arabia reached a security deal with Pakistan and I think the reason that Pakistan was trying to host the mediation talks is that so Pakistan could then tell Saudi Arabia sorry we can't participate in this war. We're mediators But they're not well

With the big Pakistani media because I think what what's what's being missed there is I think Pakistan has been one of the country's understanding this emerging geopolitical power not just the details. And so if you notice who else was there, it was, you basically had Pakistan, you had Turkey, you had Saudi Arabia, you have Iran.

This is the, there is a growing anti-American coalition that is emerging here. As soon as we talked about arming the Kurds, we effectively lost Turkey. I mean, Turkey's got millions of Kurds. The idea we're gonna arm the Kurds,

the first thing those Kurds are likely to wanna do is turn on Turkey. So this is already, our ideas here are just doing everything to push away those Those countries and Pakistan is starting to build Coalitions here. So I don't think this is just about being mr. Nice guy Pakistan. Let's be nice

I think that what you're seeing is the reality of how the geopolitical game is played

I am professor Robert Pape, author of the Escalation Trap sub stack, probably have to talk to you again next week to get more depressing news about how we solve it.

I'm very glad to do it. And thank you so much. Really, thank you. That was excellent.

Thank you. You got it. All right, we'll see you later. A little rundown on the economic news, and guess what? It's not great.

More bad news.

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