A Deal Doesn’t End This War | Robert Pape on Iran

[00:00:00] Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the At the Waters Edge Podcast. Now, apparently, the U.S. and Iran have reached a deal. Isn't that great news? We'll see if they can keep things calm enough, long enough for it to actually get signed this Friday. Now, what the deal is, we're not quite sure yet. According to the Iranian side, they're getting everything they want. And according to the American side, it's a huge victory for the U.S. and the region, though they're not actually sharing any of the details yet, it seems. Interesting. So what does this mean for the future of the conflict in the region?

[00:00:29] Are we actually looking at an off-ramp, or is this just a road sign on the way to further escalation? We're joined again this morning by Professor Pape from the University of Chicago to explore just that. If you've enjoyed this series of content with the professor, please be sure to like, subscribe, and share an episode with a friend. It really helps get the show out to more people. With that, let's get to Professor Pape. Well, good morning and welcome back. Thanks very much for having me, Scott.

[00:00:55] The world changes here every day, big ways. And I'm really glad that we get a chance to talk about it. Likewise. And this will be the second week in a row we focus just on basically the last 24 hours because apparently a deal has been signed. This whole thing is over. Trump ordered the deal our way to victory. And we're done, right? That's what happened. We got a deal signed and we're just all moving on now? Yeah. So thank you. Yeah. So I don't think we're moving on.

[00:01:23] And what I want to do, Scott, is I want to speak really directly as if only the frontline troops in CENTCOM and in the Gulf are listening to this. So I have already been on a number, a lot of media. Those listening who want to hear a lot of, you know, wide stuff and will probably get into it. That's absolutely fine. And also, I just did a giant sub stack here. You know, you don't get a lot of sleep in war.

[00:01:51] People in front lines know that a lot better than I do. So and I'm trying to do the best I can to give the best that I can in this situation. Now, the big thing I want to say to our frontline forces here, because there is undoubtedly tremendous anxiety about what is occurring or not occurring and what this means in the short term, the long term. And I'm going to talk about all of that, Scott, in the meaning of the deal. Is there a deal?

[00:02:19] The big thing I want to say right up front is what would the end of the war look like for our frontline forces? How would they know the war is ending? OK, and how they would know is that they're being withdrawn. They're physically leaving the region. I mean that the forces that went in, the ground forces, the airborne troops are physically out of the region.

[00:02:49] I mean, the Marines are physically out of the region, go back to their bases here in the other regions of the world. I mean that it's it's probably wouldn't be 100 percent of our naval forces under any conditions would leave the region. Certainly one of the aircraft carriers would physically go to another place in the world, say the Pacific or the Atlantic.

[00:03:16] You would have probably the vast majority of the other. You certainly have, of course, the the the the ships that go with the carriers, but you would have the vast majority, probably something like 60 to 70 percent of the ships overall would leave the region. And that is the the key thing. Also, the aircraft that includes tanker support, that includes what's happening at Jordan.

[00:03:44] Now, I don't have the full details the way your frontline forces are going to have. They already know what the details are. I don't think they need exactly Professor Pape to sort of find out what CENCOM is not putting out to the world or so forth. The big thing is what I just said, which is until they are physically removed, the war is not coming to an end. That's just the fact of the matter here.

[00:04:12] And it can change in a heartbeat here. It can change because Israel decides to bomb Beirut. That, of course, means Iran might will go back to hitting Israel. It can mean Israel decides to assassinate the new supreme leader because it got the new supreme leader in their gun sights. And they're just going to go do it. And they don't care what Donald Trump says unless Trump shoots the planes down. OK, so and I don't think that's happening. All right. So so I'm not going out.

[00:04:41] I wouldn't say I'm just trying to point out that that the the the the way we can talk about the ways this will unwind or potentially unwind or come together here. We would definitely talk about that. But for our frontline forces here, this is the absolute crucial issue is are they there or not? And if they're there, the war is there and it doesn't matter whether they're shooting. Doesn't matter whether ships are moving through the strait or not.

[00:05:10] That's just what's what's what's that's just what's what's out there in the noise. The signal is, are you physically there? At the Water's Edge is supported by Gray's Own Advisory. Gray's Own helps businesses and organizations understand geopolitical risk before it becomes a crisis. If your company is exposed to conflict, supply chain risk, defense markets or international instability,

[00:05:33] Gray's Own provides executive briefings, strategic analysis and decision support to help leaders understand what is changing and what to do next. Learn more at grayzoneadvisory.com. You had an interesting article in your sub stack this morning I was reading through and you were talking about how time is not going to happen. How do you think that troops are not neutral in these conflicts and thinking simply about what's going on in the Gulf? You know, we have this in a week. There's a signing ceremony and then 60 days. We'll have a final understanding, whatever rough timeline.

[00:06:04] How do you assuming that troops are not leaving the region? How does the 60-day window, what is different as we approach the end of that 60-day window for them versus how it is right now? Is it just a flatline level of potential escalation? Or as we get to the end of that 60-day window and they're still physically present, do we expect a flare-up? How is Iran likely to respond to that? Well, there is an issue I'm expecting that will come on the table as the 60 days goes forward.

[00:06:33] That is the real potential for the flare-up, Scott. And that is the issue that the deputy foreign minister of Iran has already put on the table. So Donald Trump gave the post last night. Probably everybody here has seen that. But what they may or may not have seen is the deputy foreign minister of Iran who gave his statement. And that's been the most senior. And then just this morning before we got on, it's been repeated by more foreign ministry spokesmen.

[00:07:03] So there hasn't been any change from what the deputy foreign minister said last night that I can find so far. Okay? So literally before we got on, Scott, that's what I was checking here. And what the issue is I'm most concerned about vis-a-vis our troops and Aflera is the demand or the withdrawal of our troops. So I just talked about how that is a crucial, crucial issue of withdrawal of our troops.

[00:07:30] Well, I think this will become an issue as we move through the 60 days because I think that what Iran has in front of it is growing leverage. And when states have growing leverage or power, that tends to lead to more ambitious goals. And their leverage, and I'm glad I'll just give you the high point and then we can get into the detail,

[00:07:59] is coming because those oil inventories will continue to run down over the next 60 days. That's going to create leverage where then any minor disruption of oil will tend to have much more impact than it does today because our cushions will be gone. Right now we have cushion. That cushions are going to run out. Now, as that happens, then their leverage will go up.

[00:08:24] And as their leverage goes up, what are the things they might want? Well, right now they have survival. And President Trump is, even by his rendition of the MOU, he's not calling for the regime change. In fact, he's trying to say, oh, I was never that interested in regime change. So there's nothing about regime change. There's nothing about Iran losing its missiles or losing its drones here.

[00:08:51] So that whole set of also the prox, there's nothing in here about Iran won't support the prox. So all those tools, the regime and its tools of regional influence are there, even by President Trump's own interpretation of what is coming. So those tools are there. Okay. That leverage then, what's the next step?

[00:09:15] So Iran has gone then from survival to control of Hormuz, or it could control Hormuz again. Keeping the means of control, what would be the next step to solidify power, gaining power? That next step would be the withdrawal of American forces. And that withdrawal of American forces is already being discussed by Iran. I'm not surprised because that is a power step.

[00:09:45] It's not just a, like, that's how you end the war step. And that would have power because if those forces do withdraw, that will move the frontline states even more to cooperate and side with Iran than they are already. They're already moving aside with Iran. That's already happening. This would move them even further because it would be clear that the United States not only can't defend the physical security of those Gulf states,

[00:10:14] it's not going to try. And that will push that over the edge. So that's the, and then can America really withdraw those forces between now and the midterms?

[00:10:24] You see, this issue of between now and the midterms for President Trump, he's still in this, in this, the mechanism of the escalation trap is a domestic political mechanism where the leader that starts the war doesn't want to own the L of the war. But if the L's keep coming, you know, it's like you think the game's over and it's not over. The other side's still scoring on you. You said, wait a minute.

[00:10:53] No, I, I, the game's over, right? Our team's walking off the field and they keep scoring touchdowns. Well, that's what I'm, I'm describing that, that, uh, that idea. And that's where the flare up is potential because there is a big hunk of Trump's domestic political base that is already very unhappy with this, uh, situation of the deal. You can see it already in the last 12 hours and they will get more unhappy as there's more L's or more points for Iran on the board.

[00:11:21] The more Iran puts points on the board going forward, the more that's going to be, um, uh, a domestic, uh, political losses. It translates immediately into domestic political pressure for escalation here, uh, for, and that's where the flare up is. So, so I think we're in the middle game of the escalation trap. It's the middle. Um, I think that we probably have another couple months here in the middle.

[00:11:48] Um, it may, uh, be that the end game will start and how would you know the end game starts? It's if we actually withdraw, uh, here. However, there is a real problem with withdrawing and that is not the problem for our troops, by the way. Um, and, and, and it's, it's, uh, uh, it's, it's the problem that if, if Trump, uh, physically withdraws between now and the midterms, this is just going to look, I mean, you, it's not just the Democrats.

[00:12:17] Who are going to scream. It's going to be the, um, uh, a big half, you know, maybe half of Trump's own base. They'll, it's not, they won't, they'll look for the Democrats and they won't come out at all. It's, it's not so much. They're flipping sides. That's not the issue for Trump. The issue is, will they show up at all in, in what's the numbers they will show up? You see? And so that's really the, the, the reason for the flare up and, and why I'm talking so directly here.

[00:12:45] I'm not going into all, I mean, I'm that post I put on subset really covers quite a bit of the waterfront. And that's what that was meant to do, Scott. And then also those still keep the through line all the way through. So you could see where the tensions are as we go forward here. Um, uh, and that's, and that's what I'm trying to do with the, with the, with the escalation draft. It's not just a generic framework. It's a framework to help understand where the risks actually are. And we don't have a crystal ball.

[00:13:14] So we don't, can't really say what will happen on Friday or not. What we can do is track incentives, track the risks. We can see how that's changing over time. And then what would be the indicators of reversal and change? Those are the things that I think we can, we can usefully do. Yeah. So when we talk about withdrawal too, from Iran's point of view, is that just, you know, the forces that the U.S. surged into the region going home?

[00:13:42] Or is that U.S. bases in the region getting permanently shut down? Well, I would, what I, what I, I'm tracking the leverage according to the oil inventories, Scott. That's the underlying reality that is giving Iran the leverage. And there's two sources that I have relied on for this.

[00:14:03] Number one, in the nearest term source, oil inventory experts that I have known about, but I had a chance to actually physically meet face-to-face in person for over four hours. Garrett, the University of Chicago, in a meeting, they flew in from around the world. So it wasn't actually initially to meet with me. It's, you know, we have this pretty important economics department at the University of Chicago. People might have heard of that. Okay.

[00:14:31] I'm not an economist, but I was like, unbelievable. I got the invitation and, and, and of course the Iran war was the centerpiece of, of, of, you can imagine. Right. So, so this was, this was, and, and so, although they wanted to hear some, you know, what I, what I thought I, I had a research call. I was there. You showed up with a pen and paper, taking notes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm there. Yeah. You, you guys, so you, you guys asked me all you want. I'm glad to tell you my stuff, but it's, you know, show and tell here. Okay.

[00:15:01] It's both sides are going to show and tell. And so I learned a tremendous amount. And so in the short term, what's happening is I, so I got solidified more solid understanding of exactly where the bottoms are in the oil inventories. Now this is available online. You can find stuff, but it's different when you're actually face to face and you can really interrogate.

[00:15:22] So the bottom line is that the, the floors on our strategic reserves, and this is true of other countries as well, is the floor is higher and harder than is typically communicated. So we started the war with just under the U S strategic oil strategic reserve, uh, under about 400 million barrels of oil and February 28.

[00:15:48] Uh, we're now at three 48 and we're drawing down eight, uh, week. That's the million barrels a week. We're drawing down the floor though is not zero and it's not 150. It's somewhere between two 70 and 300. So this is why you hear the them on, on, uh, uh, on, on, on in the media or on social media saying, we're getting to the point where we've never been to except in 1983 and why they're getting scared about that.

[00:16:18] Now, what happens when you get to that level, Scott is these caverns where we keep the oil. And this is because this is just how oil is kept our salt and that's, uh, and there's salt and sulfur. Well, what happens is the cave walls, the walls start to collapse. And that is the physical operational. When I say the operational minimums, that's what they're talking about. Now there is a little bit of wiggle room.

[00:16:47] So it's this debate between two 70 and 300. Okay. Oh, we got room. What? So we got room. Oh yeah. We got a clear two week window of cushion here. So, so this is why, um, they're already saying that we're starting this problem of starting to, uh, release less of the oil than we were. And this is why I think the panic is setting in here with Trump and Besson. And so this is these detail. I, I, I, we don't know.

[00:17:16] I mean, I'm not sitting there with them, but these, these, uh, figures, these realities are just the realities. They're not classified, but they're the realities of what's really driving. The, uh, leverage here, uh, and the fears, um, over time, or another way to think about the ship hitting the Titanic or I mean, the Titanic hitting the, the iceberg, that iceberg are those. Uh, bottom minimums. So that's the short-term thing I'm focusing on.

[00:17:42] The longer term thing is just simply the international, uh, energy agency where they are saying that it won't, we won't, we, even if we, uh, as we run down these, uh, oil inventories. Over the next few months, we won't have the extra to put back in the inventories until January or February. And the reason for that is because the world now is on a knife edge of supply and demand.

[00:18:11] All of the, you know, we've already had some supply, uh, I'm sorry, demand destruction. It's not very much, but it's enough to create a real tight balance between supply and demand. So as new oil, uh, comes on the market over the next couple months, and it's going to take a couple months for new oil to come on the market here. Uh, for, as, as a lot of people will already know, pumps open, ships getting filled, ships transiting over the water.

[00:18:38] So ships going to refinery will take, will take somewhere between 30 and 60 days to even start happening. Um, uh, but during that time, you'll have to still draw down the inventory. So that inventory draws will still keep going down because we won't have the new oil coming in for 30 to 60 days. Now, even then we won't have enough oil to fill up the inventory or the cushion.

[00:19:06] So that means that that knife edge will be there for, uh, months, probably about four to six months, something like that. Uh, even if everything goes perfectly, no firing, no, no, no shooting, nothing. And in that period of time, that's when even the smallest of disruptions by Iran, uh, here or a hurricane or any disruption.

[00:19:29] And so it's not even just Iran, any of those things will have a disordinate and a disproportionate effect in affecting, uh, the prices of oil, the price of gasoline, what we pay in our cars. So that's this tension that I'm talking about and the exact details of where I'm getting the concerns from, where it's, what it rests on here.

[00:19:51] And for our troops here, this is important because this helps to explain why the potential for flare up with whether it's Israel or whether it's something related to the Houthis. We don't independent of Israel, uh, whether it's related to, um, Iran, not getting the money. It thinks it's extorting. So I think Iran thinks it's fleecing Trump.

[00:20:13] I think Iran thinks it's based on what the deputy foreign minister is saying here is that Iran thinks it's getting a whole bunch of money, uh, here and not months and months out in the, in the pretty near term. We're saying JD Vance just this morning before I got on with you is saying, no, no, never going to happen. Uh, it's all performance based here. Uh, well, okay, but notice that's a, that's a loggerhead and, and, and maybe, uh, Iran will just cave.

[00:20:43] You see, so maybe this is what, uh, they're, they're counting on that Iran will simply cave and it will suck it up. You know, uh, Israel will bomb Beirut. Iran suck it up. Israel, uh, United States. Well, yeah, we're going to be around that $12 billion, but you know, you thought you were getting it Friday, but you know, how's August 1st sound to you? You know, it takes a while. Those wire transfers, these things, a lot of paperwork at the bank, a lot of paperwork in the bank.

[00:21:11] So, so we may, um, uh, hold to what JD Vance is saying. Uh, we, we, and we actually don't have a crystal ball. So president Trump, whatever he thinks today, you can change it tomorrow. We all know that. So, so it's not, uh, but it really is about, will Iran accept an L because that's what they want. And it's understandable. They're there. They don't want the L somebody's got to own L's how wars go. Okay.

[00:21:40] So not ending in a draw. So this, this is not a, and, and so somebody's in there and that's what the negotiations are ultimately about. Who's owning the L's and how many L's do they own? And, um, you can see that, um, uh, we're doing everything we can to push the L's over to them. They're saying, no, the L's are coming on your side. That's the stickiness of the trap.

[00:22:07] It's, it's, uh, it's independent even of what's, what the piece of paper says, because it really is about the L's, the losses. So we're talking about troops in the Gulf, but we also have a significant presence in Israel. We have uniform folks. People don't hear about it a lot, but they, they work in Lebanon. We have people in Beirut, uh, working in and around Israeli airstrikes, not supporting the airstrikes. I'm not saying that, but we have people there that have to deal with that.

[00:22:32] Um, how does this pending agreement change Israel's behavior? And cause that's going to impact how the folks that we have embedded with the IDF are going to work with them on a day-to-day basis and the risk profile, the folks that we have working in Lebanon. Yeah. So this, uh, this, uh, a picture I'm drawing of Iran's growing leverage, it is leveraged toward a goal of regional primacy.

[00:22:58] Uh, that is being the dominant state in the Persian Gulf. Now it's not there yet. Of course, these are these steps. I keep trying to explain that it's not a matter that they just have the, the dominance or they don't. But before the war, the state that thought was becoming the regional, uh, hegemon or the dominant state or primacy was Israel.

[00:23:21] So now the state that is the biggest loser, uh, even bigger would be than the United States. Although it's kind of hard to imagine that this is, there's a state that loses even more than what's happening here. But still it would, is Israel because of the reversal of its expectations, the reversal of the trajectories here.

[00:23:42] Now, what that means is that, uh, Israel has an even greater interest than the United States in trying to stop those, that gaining of power over time. And we have to remember it was Israel bombs that killed the Supreme leader. And so this isn't just about Israel hitting Lebanon. So, so right now it's the way the media and it makes perfect sense, uh, is understand is explaining this.

[00:24:11] It's Israel matters because Lebanon matters to Iran. And therefore that's the mechanism where this whole thing comes unraveled. There is a, that's true. That is there, but there's an alternative second mechanism that was there on February 28th. You have to remember Israel went to pound the regime to cut, weaken Iran as a regional player.

[00:24:36] And that was a direct effort by, by Israel to bid for it in its bid for regional primacy. So I think what you're going to have is in the region, this balance of power politics between Iran and Israel is, is a wider dimension than just Lebanon. It already includes the Houthis. The Houthis have already come in, but it includes Iran itself. So this is where the, the pressure will come on Netanyahu.

[00:25:06] Can he really hold back and not strike Iran? I don't mean just, uh, strike Beirut here or, or you could even say, well, he'll strike Beirut to get Iran to hit him. So he can't, but all those games, the bigger thing is that it's, it's about who's going to be the dominant state. In the Persian Gulf and Israel thought it was Israel, the Abraham Accords. That's all Israel's sphere of influence.

[00:25:34] The way regional power politics works. Now it's those Gulf states are siding more with Iran. They're not siding with Israel. If anything, they're going to start to come in and criticize Israel and push back on Israel even more. So this is where the pressure on Israel now will come from. So you said balance of power politics. And I really started thinking through, you know, balancing versus bandwagoning and different strategies that states could use.

[00:25:59] From Israel's perspective, I don't see how they can get anyone to bandwagon to them. And I'm not sure who they would balance with against Iran after all this. What strategies do they even have? They're on an island. So, so there, when they have been thinking here, it noticed it was Donald Trump who was the key broker of the Abraham Accords, not just, not just Israel.

[00:26:24] So, and Trump a year ago made this famous trip to the region where he was trying to solidify support for the Abraham Accords, AKA solidify Gulf state support for Israel, normalization with Israel, where he was providing economic benefits. He brought all the tech billionaires, so many with them to do tech deals here for the Gulf states. Well, that was all in the service of building Israel's sphere of influence and balance of power terms.

[00:26:54] Wasn't discussed that way, but that's the reality of the situation. That's the way a realist would understand what's occurring. And now that is all gone. The Abraham Accords is totally in tatters here. This is nowhere to be seen. And worse, if there are all kinds of reports of the UAE paying protection money, $3 billion, according to Reuters, not to be attacked,

[00:27:20] then there's Qatar that may be willing to pony up the $12 billion to pay for the signing bonus on Friday. Okay. So, and what you have is a situation. Now you have, in Saudi Arabia, has got all this oil coming out through the Red Sea. Well, they don't want the Houthis pounding that. So, what are they willing to pay to protect that? So, you've got to sit, and who, they're not going to pay America. That would be, you know, it's either the Houthis or Iran. You see what I mean?

[00:27:48] So, the way this is shaping up, it's different ways in which states are currying favor and paying Iran. And that is another word for bandwagoning. So, in political science speak, that concrete stuff I just talked about is called bandwagoning. They're not balancing against Iran. They're bandwagoning. Or you could call it hedging, I suppose.

[00:28:17] But it's what you're going to see is Iran is going to want to have that occur more. And Israel is not. And how does Israel stop that? Especially now, America has shown it can't protect. You see, that's the huge change that's occurred here. America can't protect. That's the big deal, Scott. And that's what the states are going to respond to.

[00:28:46] And Iran, I'm saying, will take advantage of this. It's what any power would do. You don't need to be a religious, ideological, revolutionary state. This is what Bismarck would do. This is what, I mean, this is just, you know, this is what, this is realism 101. Yeah. So we've seen Trump, even with the strikes over the weekend in Beirut, you know, try to talk Iran off the ledge, just like he's trying to talk down oil markets. I can imagine he can probably pull that hat trick a couple more times.

[00:29:16] But at what point does Israeli provocation becomes insufferable for Iran? And Iran says, U.S., either rain in your attack dog over there or this is over. I think it's going to, I think as Iran's leverage grows, Iran's ambition to deter Israel from attacking Hezbollah is also going to grow. And that's what, where I think, and I'm going to be on the Professor Pape subsection, I'm

[00:29:44] going to say a little bit more about what I think Iran could be doing with Hezbollah in the future to corral Israel. So right now we're talking about, can America corral Israel? Nobody else could possibly do that. Well, you know, balance of power terms, Israel's getting more and more isolated, more and more on its own. America has fewer and fewer tools here in the region.

[00:30:09] Well, that creates vacuums and, you know, vacuums don't like to stay vacuum. So I think there are ways in which Iran and Hezbollah together can put more pressure on to weaken Israel. And I think that's one of the things you're going to see play itself out as we go forward. So this middle game of the escalation trap I'm trying to explain here is that there are

[00:30:35] these balance of power dynamics that are occurring, that where it's not the fighting on a daily basis. And keep in mind, the first stage of the escalation trap started in June 2025 when we bombed Fordow. So the first stage did not just start on February 28th. So my 20-year modeling, I always said, we bombed Fordow a year or two later.

[00:31:03] That's what will drag us into regime change bombing. Because when you bomb Fordow, you won't be able to track the dispersal of that enriched uranium. And that uncertainty will drive you into fear that there are making progress toward a nuclear weapon. And that fear is what then would lead to the regime change bombing. Israel probably poured some gasoline on that. So it happened in eight months, not one or two years.

[00:31:32] But still, that is that key dynamic here. So notice there was eight months between bombing of Fordow and killing the supreme leader. It was not a straight line up linearly of escalation. Well, that's what I mean by this escalation trap. I realize that it's very, very, you know, sort of disconcerting that this could be going on for years.

[00:31:59] But we've actually, the war has already been a year. Okay. It'll be a year in about three or four. I think the bombing of Fordow anniversary is coming up in about a week. So that will be, in my tracking of the escalation trap, the year anniversary of when this war actually started, not February 28. That was stage, that was the second part of regime change bombing, you see. And now you're just going forward.

[00:32:28] And that's why I think what Iran is doing is it's in the middle game and it wants more power. And by the way, after we get into January here, if it can actually diminish American forces, this is just heading toward the trajectory of testing nuclear weapons. So you, you, you, this is, this is balance of power politics I'm talking about. What are the incentives to ensure a state survival over a long period of time here?

[00:32:56] And I think this is also going to start to occur in these other, other states. Um, you're going to start to see new debates on nuclear deterrence. I believe in, uh, Saudi Arabia in South Korea, uh, probably not by the governments, but that's not how these debates start. They start in think tanks, universities. I mean, that's how these things go. And you say, well, that's just the think tank or university. Well, no, there's change.

[00:33:23] I think of what, and that change of ideas, what you're seeing is that discussion of, and what I'm specifically thinking is going to be the centerpiece is noticing that Iran and Ukraine got attacked when they didn't have nuclear weapons and North Korea, which was for decades, that crazy state. We couldn't possibly let have a nuclear weapon is suddenly not being attacked. Yeah. Funny how that works out. Well, I know we're at time. Lots to look at, uh, over the next week.

[00:33:53] Uh, fingers crossed that Friday goes well as best at least the best as can. And, uh, we'll see what, how this plays out. Okay. All right. We'll talk to you later, Scott. Take care. Bye.