The War Is Spiraling | Robert Pape on Iran and the Escalation Trap

[00:00:00] Good morning and welcome to the At the Waters Edge Podcast, where we look for insights beyond the headlines to take a practitioner's view on national security and geopolitics. It's the 21st of July, 2026. Let's get started. Now today we have our next installment in our ongoing series with Professor Robert Pape from the University of Chicago looking at the escalation trap and the ongoing war between the U.S. and Iran.

[00:00:21] Now we're launching this on Tuesday. Next week's episode will also be filmed on Tuesday. We had some scheduling conflicts. We had to work around for Mondays, but then we'll be going back to Monday after next week. If you've enjoyed this content with Professor, please be sure to like, subscribe, and share an episode with a friend. It really helps get the show out to more people. And links to the Professor sub-stack and the sub-stack for the show will be in the show notes. Please subscribe to both. With that, let's get to the Professor. There's plenty to talk about this week.

[00:00:49] Well, good morning and welcome back. How are you doing today? I'm doing very good, Scott. Thank you for having me. Pleasure as always. It's been a very interesting week. Let's see. Just a few of the highlights. The Houthis are announcing a blockade of the Red Sea. We've got three more U.S. service members dead, raising the total to 17. There's potentially a fourth one, but I don't know if that's been confirmed yet. We appear to be attempting to bomb Iranian civilian, Iranian civilian infrastructure at scale now.

[00:01:15] We've reinstated a naval blockade, and Iran's president is describing this as a full-scale war now. Am I missing anything? No, Scott. And before we get into the actual events, I just want to say how much this is a time to also appreciate our men and women who are serving in the U.S. military, and especially those that are in the Middle East and right on the front lines right now.

[00:01:41] You just explained that we lost at least three over the weekend. Over the last several weeks, there appear to be 100 or more who are wounded, and that is all information that is coming out slowly, but it is coming out, and that should make us all extremely grateful for the sacrifice and the competence under the pressure that we are seeing.

[00:02:08] So what we are seeing, Scott, is a spiral phase of the escalation trap. What you are describing is not really just a tit-for-tat, as some people are describing. They're trying to find quick little phrases here. This isn't really a tit-for-tat. What you are describing is a spiral. It is a vertical spiral, as you're explaining,

[00:02:34] as we're moving up vertically the escalation ladder to these more punishing attacks on both sides here. Probably the most telling moment of the vertical has been now the multiple Kuwaiti desalinization plants that have been hit. Glad to talk about this in some detail. I think you're getting these posts on the escalation trap, this breaking analysis, where I put the map out.

[00:03:02] People can really see how vulnerable this is here. So there are millions who depend on water from these plants, and there is not water backup for millions. So this is not a situation where you can just easily boil water or something. It's going to be very, very challenging. Anyway, but there's also then the horizontal nature of the spiral that is occurring, meaning the Red Sea now has come into play.

[00:03:31] And among—now, why is all this happening? It's all happening because President Trump is now determined to reverse Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran is determined to hold on to its control of the Strait of Hormuz. So this is a zero-sum. Both of these cannot stand.

[00:03:57] One side or the other will be in control or not of the Strait of Hormuz. And I don't just mean today. I mean a month from now. I mean January. I mean a year from now. At the Water's Edge is supported by Gray's Own Advisory. You don't need to be Boeing or Exxon to be impacted by geopolitical events. A sanctions list changes. A supplier goes dark. A shipping link gets rerouted overnight, and nobody warned you. Now, big companies keep consultants on retainers just for this.

[00:04:26] Most small and medium-sized companies have to find out the hard way. That's where Gray's Own steps in. Geopolitical risk analysis size for companies with 50 employees, not necessarily 50,000. Learn more at grayzoneadvisory.com. So this is the nature of the problem. Now, in the meantime, we're not just likely to have escalation like this, but there's already warnings. Warnings. This is coming from Israel, so question mark intel.

[00:04:56] But Israel about Pickaxe Mountain and centrifuges that are already operating at Pickaxe Mountain, which would be exactly what you would do to move the 60% enriched uranium to the 90%. So this is now. And this is also, by the way, Scott, when we've been discussing, you will know this, but just to let your listeners know, and some will know this, but I've been modeling the bombing of Iran for 20 years.

[00:05:26] And this war started not on February 28, but according to my modeling, it started when the United States bombed Fordow. That was in June 2025. And in my modeling, which I was always modeling the bombing of Iran, when the United States bombed Fordow, which it would do because it was the only country with the big Moab, the big bomb to be able to hit Fordow, that is what would trigger the escalation trap beginning.

[00:05:54] And the reason is because we would certainly almost surely destroy the ability of Fordow to enrich uranium, but we wouldn't be able to get or even know if the 60% in uranium was still there and also where it would go. There would be immediate concerns of dispersal. We'd worry about trucks. And I've been saying this for years, and this is how then a year later we would do regime change bombing.

[00:06:20] So that was always the prediction here, year after year after year of the model. How do you even get to regime change bombing? You first bomb Fordow. And the reason you do regime change is because you're worried about that enriched material becoming a nuclear weapon. You won't have the Iranians aren't going to let the IAEA back in, et cetera, et cetera. All of which has happened exactly, exactly as the modeling has laid out in detail.

[00:06:45] And so now you're in a situation where, again, we are worried about Pickaxe Mountain. We have U.S. apparently, because it's been reported as U.S., U.S. satellite of trucks and so forth around Pickaxe Mountain. What would you be doing at Pickaxe Mountain? I don't think you're having a coffee clutch. So these are what you would be doing.

[00:07:10] Now, Israel has thrown information in, and people would say, well, we don't trust Israel. Well, back in, you've got to remember, 2003, when we went to war in Iraq, we had all this intel about WMD. And I was very public saying this intel wasn't worth the paper it was written on. That didn't stop the fear because it was the fear, not the intel that mattered. That's what's happening here. That's what's going to happen here.

[00:07:38] Unless you have intel that decisively shows that it's not happening. How would you get that? Well, we can point out that we had intel decisively that Iran wasn't developing a nuclear weapon before Trump decided to go to war with Iran. Well, that's for sure. Yeah. No, I'm not doubting that. And again, I'm not telling you they are. I'm telling you the politics of this and how the fear plays out is not, oh, I must have, you know, high confidence they're developing a nuclear weapon.

[00:08:07] No, it's the other way around. I must have high confidence they are not developing a nuclear weapon and proving a negative incredibly hard. And Rumsfeld, this was Bush's secretary of defense. He often would say absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That was the famous phrase that got us into that 2003 war in Iraq. And then it turned out that there was nothing. There was no WMD.

[00:08:37] So this was completely wrong. But that didn't stop it. And in fact, the supporters of the war continue to support the war for years, even without that. And the reason is because of the future fear. It's the fear, Scott, that matters to the politics of this. And people might say, well, these presidents and these, you know, senior leaders, these generals, they're not supposed to be fearful. Well, yeah, right.

[00:09:02] OK, they're still human beings put on a good face, but I'm just this is just not realistic to expect. They're not going to respond to fear. So it's how they respond to fear that's really usually the issue. So anyway, but I'm just pointing out that this is the seriousness. Now, could President Trump pull back from this point? Of course, he hasn't gone forward this.

[00:09:26] And what he could go forward with is, of course, heavier bombing and also maybe trying to see some territorial objectives like JASC or something like that on the Iranian coast, things like that. He until he does it, he hasn't done it. And so that's really important to know. So there is no inevitability here.

[00:09:46] That said, for Trump to truly pull back at this point, unless the Iranians would completely surrender everything, including giving complete access to Pickaxe Mountain tomorrow. OK, unless for President Trump to pull back, it basically means the end of his presidency. It doesn't mean he would be impeached and taken out of office. I don't mean it that way.

[00:10:14] I mean, he would become Lyndon Johnson in a heartbeat, meaning Lyndon Johnson when he withdrew from running for reelection, because if he were to abandon this at this point and so abruptly, as a lot of people are calling. In fact, I wish that could happen because the consequences here are going to be bad. Horrible.

[00:10:35] But but the fact is, we need to understand that every Republican running for Congress would likely abandon him and want never want him around in during their rallies and so forth. So you are talking about the absolute lamest of lame ducks instantly. That is the pressure. Now, you might say, well, what does that mean? Then is President Trump choosing personal politics over strategy? Well, this is what I tried to explain on Monday's escalation trap.

[00:11:03] Again, I'm I've been traveling a lot. I just came back from New York, Scott. So I don't really know how much anybody's following anything at this point. All I'm doing is writing, posting, getting on planes, talking. OK, I haven't even checked. So anyway, the so if you want to track the comments, you let me know. I need someone. I read your sub stack this morning, actually getting ready for this. And two things I want to talk about, because you brought up the the fact that success requires the opening of the straight.

[00:11:33] But the opening of the straight is actually not determined by Iran or the United States. It's determined by commercial markets. Exactly. We're not in charge of victory. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So as much as we want to say, you know, oh, this is just up to Trump to declare victory and walk out or declare victory. No, actually, it's up to the commercial shippers. So so this is less the free market. Well, this is what happened in Venezuela and for the same reason. And I posted this in January on S.

[00:12:01] You can say all you want that you're going to go and open up oil and you're going to do this. You're going to do that. But it's the civilian contractors who got to go in and do all that. And as I kept explaining, they the given the geography of Venezuela, et cetera, et cetera. This would be very, very dangerous. And they don't want a bullet. They want a paycheck. So this is not something that they're they're up for. That's why they're civilian contractors. OK. Yes. So the contractors like the CIA has civilian contractors. That's right.

[00:12:31] Actual mercenaries paid by the CIA. And we might try to pay some of them. But still, the problem here that we have is we don't even determine victory. Victory is determined. You could even say by by the market. But it's not the price of oil. It's literally whether the shippers will take the risk. And then you might say, well, Bob, Professor Pape, we see ships trying to get out and it's risky and they're trying to get out. Yeah. They're trying to get out before they get killed in the escalation that's coming.

[00:12:59] So so just kind of from their perspective, they're in jail. The jail is about to get bombed. If they try to break from jail, do a jailbreak, they might get shot by the guards. But if they stay in jail, they're going to get bombed by both sides. So what's your choice? You put it like that. Yeah, exactly. So this is not indication that, oh, sure, everybody's trusting America. No, no, no. That's not what's going on.

[00:13:27] What's going on is you have a very, very spiral phase moment here of the escalation trap. Things are undoubtedly, you know, causing lots and lots of fear. And in that fear now enter some intelligence about nuclear weapons. Oh, that helps. OK, but it's not going to be easy to just dismiss, even though people will say we can't trust that. Yeah. I mean, I understand all that, but that is not going to stop these dynamics the way I'm explaining them.

[00:13:54] Now, it doesn't mean everybody will get involved with the fear, but it's pointing and all this is pointing in one direction. And the problem is we don't even determine victory here. Let me ask you about this. So it seems like the big next step America could take other than the current status quo or the entire world economy just slowly bleeds itself out and we hit catastrophe. The next step that we could take to shake things up would be putting troops on the ground.

[00:14:19] Now, from a rational military analyst perspective, this seems like a terrible idea for all sorts of reasons that aren't particularly complicated. But from a political calculus for decision makers in Washington, namely Trump, what might push us into that direction despite how idiotic it seems on paper? Yeah, it's identical to what happened with President Johnson in the Vietnam War. President Johnson understood every step when he escalated. It was unlikely to work. And he did it anyway.

[00:14:48] And in the post I gave you yesterday, Scott, I'm quoting from the tapes, the contemporaneous tapes of Johnson at the time. These are not reminiscences. OK, so we know as a fact what his thinking was. And President Trump might be going through a similar thing, which is the risks here by military planners are saying this is not likely to work. So why would President Trump do this?

[00:15:12] Well, number one, I'm explaining that it is a political decision, putting politics over strategy. But I don't think it's quite right to view it as a cynical political decision because that's not what President Johnson saw. And that's not what I saw when I advised four White Houses from 2001 to 24. That's four West Wanks. OK, and so I and these are dozens of meetings, so not just one or two.

[00:15:38] And so I am not I don't believe that that all these folks are just pure cynical. Now, there's some doubt. There's no doubt. Some of that is there. I'm not doubting that is there at all. But what I think many of them believe is they are indispensable to the security of the country to the and because they have equated their domestic agenda. With the country's national interest.

[00:16:06] This isn't just the country's national interest, Republican, Democrat, triangulate the middle. Now, what these what what politicians, what political leaders do, and I've seen this won't say any words, but we have President Johnson in Vietnam with the words is what they do. Very often is they think.

[00:16:26] Yes, as bad as X, Y or Z may be losing me as president is worse because that president sees him or herself. And it's been him so far as the key to the domestic agenda. And that's what happened for President Johnson. He believed that if he did not go forward, his domestic agenda would go belly up, not just a saving escalation.

[00:16:54] So what he saw those troops dying for was not Vietnam, was for civil rights. The the great society. All that domestic legislation in the 1960s. Now, I, of course, never have talked to President Trump. All right. And if I did, I wouldn't really be revealing anything. OK, so can't do that. However, let's just imagine what would that mean in this situation?

[00:17:20] What that would mean is President Trump going forward with the death of our troops on the table, not to get a Qatari jet, going forward to stop immigration, going forward to deport, going forward for the rest of his domestic agenda here in Congress. The which which which right now is a lot about voting, by the way.

[00:17:46] But I would just point out that this is what is would be the parallel with with Lyndon Johnson. And so it's very important here to understand that I don't think President President Johnson never gave a speech. Why? Why are those troops dying in Vietnam? He never and people would say John Kerry, famously, Senator Kerry would say they're dying. They died for a mistake. Well, what we know from President Johnson is he had a reason. He just didn't say it.

[00:18:12] He's saying it to lots and lots of people, which is they're dying for civil rights and they're dying for the domestic agenda. Now, maybe President Trump will actually come forth and explain this logic in this cold logic terms that I'm putting out. This is what needs to be. So it's not just President Trump, give a speech, rally the troops. OK, yeah, that would be that would be nice for a lot of people. But what we really want to know is why the answer to the why.

[00:18:39] Professor Pape is putting on the table what that would actually look like for real. And it's important because our troops are now dying and they deserve to know why. An actual why. Not just here's a nice here's, you know, prayers and thoughts and here's the flag. Here's the why. And I am one has his I'm not been I'm not a pro party guy. That's why nobody's ever going to hire me as national security because I don't put party above.

[00:19:07] So I gave that that ship sailed a long time ago. That's why I've been privileged to be able to advise different White Houses here and to be a foreign policy advisor to Ron Paul and Barack Obama at the same time, at least for a short term. OK, short time. So think about all that. So this doesn't make any sense for somebody building a career to, you know, dot, dot, dot. That's just not what I do. So I'm very happy in the way I'm in. And the reason is because I will not put party above country.

[00:19:36] I just won't do it. And this is what you are seeing here over and over, Scott. Well, and the name of this podcast is At the Water's Edge, because as the old phrase was, politics stops at the water's edge. And we should actually take that to heart. So I appreciate you tanking your future employment prospects in the federal government. But we certainly appreciate your analysis here. And look, I got a nice home. Yeah. Still good. Chicago does. I'm not sitting out there in one of those tin cans for nine months. I'm watching this on CNN. I'm going, oh, my God.

[00:20:06] So it seems like there's a failure of the system here, too. And I know you've got to run soon. So I'll ask you this and we can wrap. You talk about Donald Trump being a lame duck president. But wasn't one of the reasons that we have term limits for a president so that in at least that second term, they can have some moral courage to do what's right, not just what's politically expedient. Well, we adopted that term limit, Scott, after Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR died and he was elected four times.

[00:20:35] And basically, we thought that you just could never get rid of FDR. And probably if he was still, even if he wasn't, I guess we put out the term, we might still be voting for him even though he's dead. So that was really about how do you prevent a king from essentially emerging? Now, we didn't quite call it that way. Now, of course, there's other things you could say in addition, which is there are secondary knock-on effects.

[00:21:03] Maybe this would encourage better character. But what I would tell you is that and I see this not just with folks in a West Wing, but I also see this with professors, people like me. They care about their legacy here. Now, when you're in your 20s and 30s, it's hard to imagine you're even going to have a legacy. And someone like me doesn't think we've done enough to earn a legacy. So we're working like – you wonder why are we working like crazy? We're trying to earn it. Okay.

[00:21:33] We haven't really done enough. You see what I mean? And that's like normal. So if you want to know, if you look at those older professors out there that are on all these podcasts and you want to know what's going on, why are they working 18 hours a day at 80 years old? This is what's going on. Okay. But it's legacy. And so that issue of legacy doesn't term women out. You see what I'm saying? It's not really – this is what the economists – we're in – we have a huge, of course, a famous economics department.

[00:22:02] At the University of Chicago. And I've been in debates behind closed doors sometimes with some of these famous folks. And that's what they want to argue. No, you shouldn't really care because you're going to die and all that. This is just like seriously? Why are you at 80 years old still pitching – we're still doing the models workshop at 80 years old? It's because of legacy. So this is that debate. You see what I mean? The utility function doesn't really stop at death. Now, of course, you can't do anymore after you're gone.

[00:22:32] But nonetheless, that's what's at issue, Scott. And that's what I think – when I hear President Trump speak, I almost always hear in my mind him talking about his legacy here. I don't really hear him framing it as – and I think that he's 80 years old. I mean, is he going to enjoy all these billions and billions? I find this hard to believe.

[00:23:02] I mean, what exactly is – you see what I'm saying? So I think that it's about this issue of legacy. Okay. Well, I know you had to run. Thank you so much for your time this morning. And we'll talk again next week. Okay. And thanks you and thank you to everybody here listening. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.