The Deal Is Signed. The War Isn’t Over. | Robert Pape on Iran

[00:00:00] Good morning and welcome to the At the Waters Edge Podcast, where we look for insights beyond the headlines and take a practitioner's view on national security and geopolitics. It's the 22nd of June, 2026. Let's get started. We're back with the next installment in our ongoing series with Professor Robert Pape from the University of Chicago, exploring the escalation trap and the ongoing war between the U.S. and Iran. Now, the memorandum of understanding between the two countries has been signed. Negotiations are ongoing in Switzerland.

[00:00:27] Iran has shut down the Strait of Hormuz again because Israel was bombing Lebanon, but commercial ships do seem to be going through, largely unmolested. So what's this mean? What's the current state of play? What's real? What's fake? How are the different parties approaching these negotiations in Switzerland? And what does this mean for the future of the state of Israel and the security of all states in the region? Well, for all that, we go to the professor. And as always, please be sure to like, subscribe, and share an episode with a friend. It really helps get the show out to more people.

[00:00:56] Well, good morning and welcome back. How are you doing today? Doing very good, Scott. Good to speak with you again. Pleasure as always. So a bit to go through in the past seven days. The memorandum of understanding was actually signed, and actually a day earlier than we thought it was going to be. That may have been because Israel immediately was, as most people predicted, launching an attack into Lebanon to try to spoil the whole thing. They tried to get ahead of it, A for effort, F for execution.

[00:01:23] Iran then immediately closed the Strait of Hormuz again. Though, interestingly enough, they haven't started shooting at ships yet. So that might just be a rhetorical device. There is traffic going through the Strait as of this morning. And although Trump is now threatening to blow up their country again, he's had made a lot of statements over the weekend indicating he might actually be internalizing and accepting the L. Very strange to see happen. The man's very unpredictable. We'll see how it goes. Yeah.

[00:01:50] But the vice president is saying they're making good progress out there in Switzerland. That seems to be the state of play this morning. I think you've captured it really well, Scott. So a week ago when we were on, I was explaining that we are moving toward a very uncertain agreement. This would be rocky.

[00:02:11] And then also, but the driving force that's driving things for Trump and then also Iran's leverage is that we're running down our oil inventors. So one of the big things we learned this week is both of those are true. Okay. So we were going forward there. This is incredibly rocky. This is this can can fall apart for a variety of reasons, almost at a moment's notice. And you've seen on again, off again, just as you have just described it.

[00:02:42] And also President Trump was forthright when he said that what is driving him are those oil inventories running out. So for weeks I've been talking about this. I've been laying out these as the core issue that is facing the world, President Trump. And this is in fact now you couldn't have had it more definitively validated than that. So we are really seeing those frameworks in action.

[00:03:11] But we're also seeing something that's important as well. And that's what I really want to talk about today, which is the importance of what we're seeing is the battlefield is now shifting to the negotiations. The negotiations are becoming a tool for Iran to gain power.

[00:03:33] But it's important that I think before we get into the details, we talk about the importance of having the right framework for understanding these negotiations. Because that's what I have observed is cloudy. Maybe not altogether missing. I don't want to go that far. But it's been very cloudy. And I think it makes it hard to understand where Iran's red lines are, how important is Lebanon? Are they really going to close the straits for Lebanon?

[00:04:03] All those issues are not just about eavesdropping on their internal communications. They're about the framework to understand this. And that's what I posted this morning on the escalation traps, Scott. It's a piece that gets into all the details, but it does it from the lens of what's the framework so people can understand this going forward. And this is what our intel folks need to know. There's framework A and there's framework B.

[00:04:32] And which of the frameworks is Iran really operating from? So basically, the framework that I think we are operating from in much of the world, the world's traders are operating from, is a business deal model.

[00:04:50] Where the basic understanding of most people, and you see this in J.D. Vance, you see this in a lot of the financial discussion, is we want the straight open so we don't go off the financial cliff, the economic cliff that President Trump is talking about. And what's it going to cost? Just tell us what's the price. You see, the strike price.

[00:05:16] I think that is why J.D. Vance talks about here's all these great benefits that are coming. He's talking about the strike price in a business deal. And if this was a business deal, that would make a lot of sense. So I'm not. And there's 300 billion is a hell of a bargain. 300 billion, hell of a bargain. Well, and then you couch it. You know, do you really offer that? It's like with the house, you're really going to get the really nice furniture or not.

[00:05:44] I mean, it's sort of that idea. But it's important to understand that that is a lens that makes sense here as a business model. But it's not the only lens. And I don't think it's the most powerful lens to understand these negotiations and then where things could actually go awry. The other lens is a balance of power lens.

[00:06:11] Power politics, where negotiations themselves are tools to shift the balance of power toward one party or the other. So we might think, let's say, for instance, we say, well, this war is ending. And so this is just about the post-war reparations or money that's going to change hands. That's back to the business deal model.

[00:06:38] But the problem with that model is when wars end, say, the Versailles Treaty, say, the Cold War ends, there's money that often is changing hands. I'm not saying money plays no role. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying there's an overarching framework, which is shifting the balance of power, locking it in for the victors. They want to lock in their power.

[00:07:00] They don't just want to say, well, hey, we fought this war, we won, and now, oh, the loser gets to go off and become powerful again. Now, you might have a problem locking in the loser for decades and decades, but you typically might look out over 10 years and want to lock in your loser. So in the case of the Versailles Treaty 1919, this is literally where President Trump signed the MOU. It's literally in the same balance here. I know, you can't make this stuff up.

[00:07:30] I wonder what their booking fee is. That's got to be astronomical. Or maybe it's just a brand asset. You've got to get your podcast in Versailles. That's what we're missing. We need to record live from Versailles. I'm telling you, this would be worth it. So anyway, and I'll be there. You got me. Wonderful. But what that deal was wasn't just reparations, which, of course, it was.

[00:07:58] It was about keeping Germany down for 10 years to really keep it down. That was the idea. Okay. And notice it also planted seeds of Rosent Med in the 30s and so forth. So you keep that state down, man. You rub it in like that. That may feel good for 10 years. Okay. But, you know, history, that's not that long. And so bad things can. Anyway, but also the end of the Cold War. So we end the Cold War.

[00:08:27] And when the Bush administration is ending the Cold War and James Baker, you know, these are not just business deals. You know, this is the these are the Vulcans. These are the realist par excellence. All right. There's and then Bill Clinton. You know, he's sort of like the realist with the velvet quad. Oh, no, we're we're just going to be so nice as we roll NATO right into the middle of Bill Clinton is a Republican with a different PR firm. Well, just point out.

[00:08:52] And then and then you look back and you hear this now all the time, which is that rolling in of that look good at the time. Okay. But then what happens 15 years, you know, 20 years later is you get you get Putin coming back with the Ukraine war. Okay. Why? Because of that. So I'm not trying to say that the balance of power always leads to stability. In fact, that that's the tricky part of this. But it is the way to understand what's occurring.

[00:09:19] So so this one I go through point by point by point. The MOU, I explain the specific articles and how the specific articles front load all the power benefits to Iran. You see. So if you look at this, you've kind of got you know how we we talked about dueling clocks with the blockade. Well, here you've got dueling frameworks. You've got J.D.

[00:09:46] Vance, who's operating what mostly from a business framework where here's all these great benefits you're going to get down the road. Okay. And he keeps focusing on holding out the carrots, you see. But what is happening in the shorter term, the nearer term is the actual things that are happening. The ceasefire in Lebanon, shutting down Israel's operations in Lebanon, billions of dollars, reportedly $6 billion up front.

[00:10:15] Yes, it's going to be funneled. We're going to see Iran have to buy grain from the farmers that then they can immediately sell and buy big drones. So the idea that you're walking, you know, this idea, you know, again, you got to see this with a little bit of realism here about how these things work. And we know a lot about that. And then the but if you then look at the. And those are power benefits.

[00:10:41] And I'll explain those a little bit more for Iran here. But if you look at then the other side of what is the things that we want, we're holding the big carrots out. It's the stop enrichment. Stop enrichment. I didn't say freeze it. I mean, I don't mean, you know, just sort of we're going to limit it to 3.67%. Okay. And what you're seeing is there's nothing in the MOU that actually, you know, even hints

[00:11:10] that Iran is actually up for that. And there's nothing in Iran's behavior. And this is what led the Iranian president over the weekend or what his statement was over the weekend, which is Iran's not giving up enrichment. It's not. And then that is what led President Trump when he was read that speech by the Iran president. That's immediately what triggered it. And we know because and I, you know, have to say I have to follow this very closely, but

[00:11:38] we know because the Fox reporter who read it to Trump was right there when he read the president of Iran speech. And then Trump immediately responded in this all these, you know, you know, this kind of avalanche of threats, you know, every possible threat you could imagine, including killing the negotiators, the Iranian negotiators.

[00:12:02] So anyway, but you could see right away that once you have the power framework in mind and you compare it to the business deal model, you get a clear understanding of what is, you know, sort of each side's behavior is why things seem to make sense. And so let's just kind of keep this going on the on the power model from from Iran, which

[00:12:30] is, well, what I'm explaining here and I've been saying for some time is Iran is is is on a trajectory to become a rising power in the region, the dominant power in the region. I've said over a year or two, it is on the trajectory to emerge as the fourth center of world power underneath the United States, China, Russia, and then it would be Iran. And I've been saying this for months. OK, well, this is exactly what this MOU is.

[00:12:59] It's a roadmap for Iran gaining regional primacy. And what would regional primacy be about? What are the foundation elements of regional primacy? Just so that we understand that. And this is not controversial as you know, all realists would, I think, basically sign up to this. So I'm not inventing this element here. I'm I'm I'm stitching it all together. So what what you have, number one, is you need an economic base.

[00:13:29] You need a foundation for your power. And normally we think, well, that's the internal part of an economy. And that is how we have judged this here. But it's not always that. I just want to point out when Prussia became Germany, this was not just Prussia. Things happened that railroads came in. Things happened that were broader than that. Geography played a big role in that.

[00:13:53] This guy, Halford Mackinder, wrote a famous piece in 1904 in British Journal of Geography called The Geographic Pivot of History, where he's explaining all this here. But basically what Iran is doing with its economic base is not just its economy. It is Hormuz. And that's why Hormuz matters so much in power terms, not just like making some extra change here. So that's the economic base.

[00:14:23] You see what I mean? Then you say, well, OK, a lot of countries might have an economic base, but what makes them a regional power? They have a sphere of influence. And that sphere of influence, Iran has been articulating for weeks now in what they call the security, I'm sorry, the resistance belt.

[00:14:47] And that belt, resistance belt, your listeners can Google that, I'm sure, and they will find this by the IRGC spokespeople in various ways, different generals, the leader, for instance. They mean from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea to the Gulf. That would be Lebanon to Yemen to Hormuz.

[00:15:16] Now, why would you want that sphere of influence? Why not have a wider sphere of influence out to, say, Egypt or something like that? Why not have a narrower sphere of influence, such as Hormuz to Kuwait to Saudi Arabia? The reason is because of oil. It keeps coming back to the power, the connection to the power base, which is the economic base, which is oil.

[00:15:40] So your listeners are also hearing, oh, Iran, you know, we're going to bypass Hormuz. We're going to have all these pipelines built through Syria. We've already got the UAE building more. We've got Saudi Arabia more. We're going to get out through Suez. All this stuff is all coming, right? And therefore, man, we're just going to be diminishing Iran. Well, Iran's following all that. This is not being lost on Iran here.

[00:16:07] And at least that's from a power, balanced power framework. What you're seeing is going from the Mediterranean through the Red Sea, through the Gulf here, this is an arc. You see what I mean? And it encircles all of those pipelines. Convenient, right? Funny how that works. And what do you need to make that really work? You need Lebanon because you need the coast.

[00:16:38] And what do you need? You need Hezbollah. So Hezbollah, you could say, oh, yeah, this is just like ideology and minor issue here. And it's a trivial issue. You know, President Trump seems to think this just, oh, we'll sweep this little thing under the rug. It's the minor issue. Well, if you're going to become a regional power, an actual achieved primacy, then you want this.

[00:17:05] And I put out, and Scott, I'm putting out a number of detailed analyses now. But on the Professor Pape Substack, I put out a very detailed analysis about how in the coming year or so, or maybe two, Hezbollah can start to use drones with area denial to shut down Israel's ports. It's Israel's ports. You see? Not just northern Israel. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:17:34] Detailed 2,500 words. Really analyze it. Show you how this could actually happen. It's not a... This is a serious set of issues, you see what I mean. At the Water's Edge is supported by Grayzone Advisory. Grayzone helps businesses and organizations understand geopolitical risk before it becomes a crisis.

[00:17:55] If your company is exposed to conflict, supply chain risk, defense markets, or international instability, Grayzone 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. Well, we can... That's right there, like, playing all this through, and I'm sure... I know you've thought about this in detail, and so a lot of folks I've spoken to.

[00:18:21] How is Israel still a state, or what does that state look like 10 to 15 years from now? Oh, it's... Because they seem like they are in a pickle. They're... Yeah, they're in deep trouble. They're... So... And the reversal couldn't be more started. Before the war, they were the rise. You could even call them a rising regional hegemon here. Now, it's Iran that's the rising power on the trajectory... I keep wanting to use that word...

[00:18:50] Toward regional primacy, regional hegemony. And for Israel, they are hurt in multiple ways. Number one, and this is being accelerated through the MOU negotiations, there's a giant wedge that is being driven between the United States and Israel.

[00:19:14] And as J.D. Vance said, the United States is the only major country now that's an ally for Israel. And it's the world's... He called it the world's superpower. I think China might want to beg to differ about that word. But nonetheless, gigantically important country. The number one center of power, in my view. And so what you see here is that this wedge is now... And this is dangerous for Israel because it's not just about the MOU. It aligns.

[00:19:44] The wedge Iran is driving aligns with the wedge in the U.S. body politic that has emerged with 60% of the public. You see what I mean? So for Israel here, they are in real trouble as they go forward because they're at risk. Maybe not in the next couple weeks or possibly in the next few weeks. But they're at risk over the next year or so of truly losing that benefactor.

[00:20:12] And that is an enormous amount of money. You know, as we... Again, I'm just quoting J.D. Vance. You know, two-thirds of the interceptors Israel has. We... America makes. We ship it over. We pride the money one way or the other. So this is an enormous loss for Israel. The second big problem Israel has is that, as I was just saying, is the consequences of the mass drone revolution.

[00:20:41] So there's a new revolution. This is not just the 1990s. There's a new revolution here. And that mass drone revolution is going to put... Make Israel vulnerable in ways it has not been vulnerable before and could be vulnerable at multiple axes at the same time here. So this is issue number two.

[00:21:07] Issue number three is Israel has alienated and done so, like, you know, year after year after year, most of the 500 million Muslims who live in its neighborhood. So it has picked a fight on the school ground, you know, where it was...

[00:21:30] You know, it had its big benefactor, the bully here, who was the actual, you know, big guy on the school ground who was protecting it. And so it was the little one picking a fight. Now the big one's gone away. There's more of the other ones to come at it. And it's still just 7 million Jews in a sea of 500 million Muslims. So you add up those three elements, Scott. And this just is not good for Israel over time.

[00:21:58] I think Israel is going to have a hard time keeping its 7 million Jews living there. This is going to become harder. Yeah. So, I mean, the U.S. over the years has essentially paid off Jordan and Egypt in one form or another to play nice with Israel. And things are pretty... As amicable as they can be between those states right now, the U.S. has lots of great relationships. Actually, I haven't even thought about this. How is this conflict with Iran impacting the American relationship with Jordan and Egypt?

[00:22:24] And how much influence is America going to be able to use over those two nations as far as making them play nice with Israel when their own domestic populations have lots of grievances with the Israeli state? Yeah. So you just articulated beautifully, Scott, this business model where America has been trying to buy security for Israel as a business model. Let's give billions a year to Jordan, billions a year to Egypt. And that has gone some way.

[00:22:54] I don't... Again, I'm not saying that model has no effect whatsoever. But that was in a situation where there was a much greater balance of power in the region. Now, the balance of power is shifting rather dramatically in Iran's favor. And that is going to impact how Jordan thinks about the future, how Egypt thinks about the future. Where really is the future here, you see?

[00:23:21] And when we talk about being on the right side of history, this is what we mean with the balance of power. So why did all those Eastern European states decide they wanted to join up with the EU? And this was true also, of course, Ukraine. Well, the United States was promising in the 90s it would guarantee their security. We were the growing hegemon in Europe. Here we didn't talk that way exactly, but that's how everybody understood it.

[00:23:48] So everybody else could make money under the American security umbrella. Well, now you have a situation where it's Iran who is in the position to offer security to so many of those states. America doesn't have that security to offer. It's been shown to be absent. You see, that's what's... When America has shown it can't defend the UAE or Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or its own bases,

[00:24:14] this is an earthquake in terms of consequences here. And what it means for those countries, Egypt and Jordan, is they're going to be likely to tack more and more with Iran because could they really form a counterbalancing coalition with Israel, the United States? How would that... That's completely plausible and maybe even on track before the Iran war.

[00:24:44] Now, with the Iran war, that looks, I think, completely implausible. How would you justify this for Egypt and Jordan that now you're going to go up against now the rising power? You see, that's a lot. That's a lot to be asking of those states. Jordan's only, what, 6 million population? Something like that. But some... It's not... It's under 10. So it's not... These are not big countries. Egypt's bigger, 100 million.

[00:25:12] So maybe they can be a bit more independent here. But Jordan, Jordan's in a very precarious... And they housed all those F-35s. I mean, oh my goodness gracious. You know, Iran's not going to be looking at Jordan and saying, oh, sure, we're going to let you off the hook. Yeah, and you think about the Palestinian population that's living in Jordan as perpetual refugees. Like, there is...

[00:25:35] I cannot imagine, even with an autocratic government run by a king, that they can push too hard on ignoring the Palestinian question and not have a full-blown insurgency inside their own country. Yeah, exactly. Which Iran is more than qualified to form it themselves. Like, they are actually good at terrorism and insurgency. They're very qualified. You're exactly right, Scott.

[00:25:57] I mean, this is a situation that, when you look at it from Israel's perspective, is the greatest of the grand strategic disasters here. This is the one where you can actually look out and wonder, will Israel be there 10 years from now? Now, people say, well, no. They've got nuclear weapons. They're going to fight. Then, you know, Gavir, Smotrich, they're going to go down to...

[00:26:23] Well, the problem here is that that use of nuclear weapons, the radiation ultimately will blow back on them. I mean, there's limits to what you can do with nuclear weapons. And so, nuclear weapons are not... Every time a state has looked into this, whether it's Putin, us in Vietnam, whatever, we always end up seeing the same results,

[00:26:47] which is the radiation clouds blow back on us, our allies, friends. And this just has been the real problem. It's not just because we're goody-two-shoes and we don't want to hurt people. There's actually negative consequences that immediately happen. And now Israel, of course, you know, has to make decisions. Maybe they will ignore those immediate consequences, but they are going to come. They would be there.

[00:27:15] And that's the problem why this whole plan of Israel was a gigantic... The bids for hegemony as wars of choice rarely have worked out. What's helping Iran is they did not choose the war of choice. Israel and Trump chose it for them. So they get to project Iran as the victim. You see? And I just tell you, that's what Bismarck did.

[00:27:45] And yes, poor Prussia. We're just the poor victim here. Napoleon III, that impulsive. I know we're at time, but can I ask you one more question? Yes. Okay. So you mentioned the Treaty of Versailles and all the punitive measures in it. Classic case. Hitler comes back, runs over Europe. Obviously bad.

[00:28:08] Is there a version of these negotiations where Iran pushes for too much and it creates so much resentment in other states in the Gulf? It blows back on them in 15, 20 years. Is there things that they need to not try to push too hard on? Well, yes. If they go beyond the clear red lines in the MOU. So the MOU is, for example, talking about the integrity, the territorial integrity of Lebanon.

[00:28:37] If they were to go further and demand the United States stop funding Israel as a part of its negotiation, this would start to get beyond the bounds of the MOU. And this would start to look like, again, this overreaching. And the fact is they may be able to get the United States to cut off the aid to Israel without doing that.

[00:29:04] But that's just one clear example of the possible overreaching because they are human beings. So they don't have to be, you know, they don't get to be, you know, assumed perfect as we go forward. And this is, but getting the states to agree on what is the balance of power going forward, Scott, that is the taproot of the uncertainty of this whole business in the middle of the escalation trap here.

[00:29:33] And until we actually withdraw the naval forces and those F-35, so we can, we can, I'm sure we're starting to have plans to do all that. But until we actually withdraw them here, then are, we are in this current round of the escalation trap. And that what's the glue here is, can they really agree on this new balance of power that's going forward?

[00:30:01] Because this is the, like, call it the additional L. President Trump did accept a pretty big L here. But notice he's not too comfortable sitting with that L for more than a day or two. You know, we saw as soon as the Iranian president kind of pushed his, you know, face in it, he was just right back, you know, talking smack. Now, so far, it's just talking smack. Okay. So that doesn't mean an actual smack. All right.

[00:30:28] So, so, but President Trump has been known to, to go off that end as well. So we just have to, you know, see that we're in the middle of the escalation trap. We can still see the contours of what it would mean to end. But in that, in that messy middle game here, this is what the dynamic is. That's what I'm trying to explain. There's an actual framework to help understand this. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for talking with us this morning.

[00:30:57] Look forward to chatting again next week. Seems like there's plenty going on right now to talk about. Very interesting, but also incredibly fraught. Seems like this, if something's going to go off the rails, this is about the time it's going to happen. Well, it could happen. You've seen it almost go off the rails. I mean, the IRGC, they did kind of pull back, you know, but they did use, according to the Wall Street Journal, they did use their Navy to turn back some ships. So that's in the Wall Street Journal.

[00:31:24] So I'm very, you know, much a professor. I want to see the actual evidence as much as I can, right? Nobody's going to be perfect. But the, so it's not just the IRGC just sent out a bunch of tweets. They apparently actually did something. And that's coming from the shippers. That's not coming. That's at least what's quoted in the Wall Street Journal. So again, got to start somewhere. Can you believe the Wall Street Journal? I don't know. But there you go. Well, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time. Okay.

[00:31:54] Absolutely. Peace, God.