Political scientist Robert Pape issued a bleak assessment Monday regarding President Donald Trump and his deeply unpopular war against Iran; namely, that the commander in chief no longer had a “face-saving exit” from the conflict after having “missed too many off-ramps.”
“At this point, more bombing may still destroy more Iranian military assets. But that is not the same thing as improving America’s strategic position,” Pape wrote in an analysis published Monday on his Substack. “Trump’s real problem is therefore not finding a clever way to declare victory and walk away. That opportunity has largely passed.”
The Trump administration has failed to reach an agreement with Iran regarding nuclear weapons, with Trump now privately floating the idea of abandoning that objective in lieu of reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which was notably free of disruptions before the war. Emboldened by its ability to resist pressure from the Trump administration, Iran laid out a new set of demands last weekend for reopening the strait, demands far less favorable to the United States than what it had previously offered.
Trump, reportedly seeking an exit to the war he initiated, told Axios on Sunday that his administration was “low-keying” negotiations with Iran in the hopes that the economic pressure placed on the Middle East nation would eventually put the United States in a better negotiating position.
According to Pape, however, this was a losing strategy.
“The initial bombing campaign was supposed to produce political surrender. It didn’t. Iran survived, reorganized and adapted. The subsequent rounds of escalation were supposed to restore American leverage. Instead, they created new Iranian leverage, particularly through the vulnerability of the Strait of Hormuz and the broader regional energy system,” Pape wrote.
“That is the basic structure of the Escalation Trap: tactical military success fails to produce political surrender, so leaders escalate again in the hope that the next round will finally deliver the result the previous round did not.”