President Donald Trump's current strategy in Iran is leading him into a "trap" of his own making, terrorism expert and legal scholar Robert Pape warned in a segment on CNN Wednesday morning.
This comes amid a growing fear and division among Republicans on the ethical and political advisability of following Trump on his Iran plans.
"Yourtake on this has been very, veryinteresting, but let's starthere," said anchor Kate Bolduan, referencing his recent Substack post, "The Escalation Trap." "You say that the United States is now entering the mostdangerous phase in this militarycampaign so far. Explain why."
"Thanks for having me on, Kate," said Pape. "For 30 years, I have studied airpower and escalation. I'vetaught for the U.S. Air Forcefor 20 years. I've modeled the bombing of Iran, taking out [nuclear facilities at] Fordow, Natanz, and regimechange."
The bottom line, Pape continued, is that "President Trump is upagainst the weight of history. For over 100 years states havebeen trying to topplegovernments with air poweralone. And, and — I'm choosing mywords carefully — it has neverworked."
"We are now about toenter the most dangerous phaseof the escalation trap, as Icall it, where initial successwith precision weapons, whichare tactically effective — andyou see, we killed the SupremeLeader — lead to strategicfailure, which then suck usdeeper and deeper into aconflict," said Pape. "We didn't plan to godeeper and deeper, and we keptsaying we would not. And we areabout to enter that phase in thenext week or two."
In other words, he added, "This will bethe most dangerous moment of thecrisis."