299 - Robert Pape: Trump Is Making Iran STRONGER—and America WEAKER

Robert Pape (0:00)

A second-tier country could essentially defeat the strongest country on the planet. Bombing had never toppled a regime in 100 years since World War I. It just has never worked. It did more than fail. It set the stage for Iran to lash back and gain control of the Strait of Hormuz. This scenario is not science fiction. It is real. This is going to lead to a strengthening of the Davids against the Gawaii. We're nowhere near the endgame.

Robinson Erhardt (0:38)

I just wanted to start out with, I think a very simple question that will probably not have necessarily a simple answer. But do you think that, I mean, we're many months into this war now with Iran. Is the United States closer to ending it or to finding itself embroiled in a much bigger one?

Robert Pape (0:57)

Finding itself embroiled in a much bigger one than we are to ending it. So at a minimum, we're in the middle. We're nowhere near the end game.

And the core issue is that this war has upended the balance of power that existed before the war in the region. So before the war, this would be February 27 Of course, we have all the issues, the Iran's enrichment, we can talk about all that. I just want to focus on why the war just resists ending. And it has to do with the upending of a balance of power. So when the war began, the United States was the preeminent power in the region. Israel was a rising power in the region. And Iran was a declining power in the region. And I would have said that as well. That was not just, these would have been, I think, a very consensus view. What's happened since pretty much the opening days of the war is that war has first started and now, I would say, shattered the balance of power that existed before the war began. And that happened because the opening strikes launched into a regime change operation which had never worked. Bombing had never toppled a regime in 100 years since World War I. It just has never worked. But it did more than fail. It set the stage for Iran to lash back and gain control of the Strait of Hormuz. And it gained selective control of the Strait of Hormuz, so it didn't just mine it and shut it down. It gained control in a way that it could politically leverage its control of Hormuz. And when that happened, the balance of power immediately began to shift. Now it didn't shift literally in a day, but it began to shift over time. And what you have now is America has been knocked down several pegs in terms of its power in the region. And that's literally physically so because the 13 bases that America had right in the frontline Gulf States have been all smashed. Now some have been smashed more than others, but notice that this is a dramatic weakening of American power.

And there's more elements other than that. And Israel, which had been the rising power, now since with America diminished, is much more contained, although not fully contained, still doing operations. But Iran is now the rising power.

And that fluidity in the balance of power is what is making it so difficult to end the war.

When wars start, they start from a position of a balance of power. If there's a quick and decisive victory, usually that's just solidifying the original balance of power. But when wars start and they keep going on, it is common for them to upend the balances of power. And it's costly. So this is why as the wars become costly on all the sides, you have lots of people saying, my goodness gracious, can't we just end this war? This is too expensive. Well, in domestic conflicts, you can sometimes get a government to come in and often get the government in to suppress things. International, no, you can't. There's no government. There's no 911 There's no government to call. So what happens when the balance of power gets upended in international politics is these wars can go on, and they become very difficult to settle. And it doesn't mean they'll never settle, but usually what settles, say World War I, is that the parties come to agree on a new balance of power. Now, those agreements are often what is reflected in a peace agreement. But they don't always have to be written down, but there is essentially a consensus, usually will then form at some point, on the new balance of power. And until that happens, it's extremely difficult to end the war. So right now, Iran is on the road to becoming the hegemon, the dominant state in the Persian Gulf.