'Trap Closing Around Trump': Ex-White House Adviser On Iran War

US President Donald Trump has already fallen into the "escalation trap" and he will get all the more enmeshed once boots are on the ground in Iran, Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago told NDTV today. In an exclusive interview with Shiv Aroor, Pape, US national security expert and former advisor to the White House, said that is when the war could really drag on and lead to the situation that the US has always wanted to avoid -- that of Iran becoming an oil hegemon and controlling the rest of the world. 

"The trap is not snap shut yet, but it is gripping around him (Trump), and that's why you see him moving from side to side, pause to pause here, and effectively, he's waiting for the 10 days for the Marines to get there," Pape said. 

The "side to side" is Trump's latest move to announce a scaling down of the attack for five days. But that, he indicated, is more of a stalling technique and the "real timeline" is the Marines. 

Trump, he pointed out, has not ordered the ships carrying US Marines to reverse course. "I want to see behavior, not just statements out of any of these leaders," Pape said. If the ships "turn around at sea" then one can start talking about "pulling back from a stage three," he added.

"Once they (the US Marines) get there, now we are going to be in a different state. Iran is still in control of Hormuz... The price of oil will then be even higher. The recession word will start to be said more and more by JP Morgan," Pape said, analysing the outcome of the trajectory of events. 

Explaining what exactly an escalation trap is, Pape said: "The escalation trap happens when confidence in tactical success, bombs hitting targets, bombs killing leaders, does not produce the strategic result, regime change toward President Trump, the enriched uranium out of Iran. And that then leads the strong power, the United States, to double down, moving up the escalation ladder. That then leads to still more failure at the strategic level, which then encourages more doubling down, moving up." 

The current situation, Pape said, is one that gives Iran all the advantage. 

"Now you have got the dreaded oil hegemon in Iran that we've worried about and wanted to prevent for 50 years... That's what our whole approach to the Middle East, people think it's all been about Israel. No, it's been about preventing an oil hegemon," he added.

About how to control the situation and normalise it, he said the only way would be to "contain Israel militarily".

"That's the real un-played card here and just as only Nixon could have gone to China, only Trump would really be in a position in the US to militarily contain Israel with a policy that would have some teeth... Israel or Netanyahu declaring they won't attack because they've broken those promises so many times and they've killed the Iranian negotiator. So that's not really going to fly," he added.