Inside Iran: Is the war about to escalate?

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim

Episode: Inside Iran: Is the war about to escalate?
Date: July 15, 2026
Host: Richard Engel
Guest: Professor Robert Pape (University of Chicago)
Co-host Notice: Yalda Hakim away for this episode

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Overview

This episode offers a frontline account from Richard Engel, reporting just back from Iran during the aftermath of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s assassination and amidst the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict. Engel provides rare on-the-ground insights from Tehran, exploring the Iranian public’s mood, regime transitions, and the status of the war. The episode features an in-depth interview with political scientist Professor Robert Pape about the trajectory of the conflict, the risks of military escalation, shifting power in the Middle East, and potential global consequences.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. On the Ground in Iran

• Access and Atmosphere: Richard Engel describes “extraordinary” access allowed to international media in Tehran, with minimal restrictions, likely due to sheer journalist volume and government confidence [(03:15)].
• Public Sentiment: Tehran’s streets were filled with millions for the Supreme Leader’s funeral, with chants of "revenge, revenge" and "death to America," reflecting a powerful mix of grief and militant fervor [(03:56)].
• Regime and Societal Cohesion: The war has temporarily united much of Iranian society, even those previously opposed to the regime. Many acknowledge the regime’s resilience and capacity to provide social stability during conflict [(04:40)].
• Transition of Power: Uncertainty lingers over Khamenei’s son, Mujtaba, who has not been seen publicly, fueling speculation and intrigue among ordinary Iranians and elites alike [(05:35)].

2. Navigating the Conflict as Journalists

• Experience During Strikes: Engel recounts being in Tehran during a round of U.S.-Iranian strikes. Despite the action, life in the capital remained calm, and the press experienced freedom of movement—a reflection of regime confidence [(07:55)].
• Iran’s Strategy: The regime is asserting its control over the Strait of Hormuz, firing on non-compliant ships, and making a show of normalcy and order in its cities [(08:14)].

3. Popular Support and Opposition

• Funeral Crowds: Engel confirms reports of millions attending nationwide funeral events—“not tens of thousands, but millions”—indicating a significant mobilization, if not full support [(09:11)].
• Enduring Opposition: While the war has buoyed government credibility, it has not altered the core opposition's stance—“the people who hated the government still hate the government. And I don't think it changed anyone's opinion” [(10:15)].

4. Expert Analysis: Professor Robert Pape

• Strategic Overview: Pape distinguishes between U.S./Israeli tactical successes (e.g., assassinations, bombing runs) and strategic failure, as Iran now controls the crucial Strait of Hormuz [(12:21)].

• Escalation Trap: The conflict is described as following an “escalation trap” with four sequential stages:

  • Stage 1: Bombings that fail to collapse the regime, causing it to stiffen.
  • Stage 2: Iran strengthens and gains control over Hormuz, enhancing its regional power.
  • Stage 3: U.S. contemplates limited ground operations and more aggressive efforts to retake Hormuz, with preparations including new bombing patterns [(14:13)].
  • Stage 4: U.S. pullback—Trump briefly sought a face-saving “MOU” with Iran, but could not accept being seen as the “loser” at home [(21:20)].

• Likelihood and Risks of Escalation: Pape forecasts a 70% likelihood of U.S.-led ground operations, which would face constant Iranian attacks and mark a significant escalation beyond previous confrontations. Contrary to expectations, he says President Trump is more likely to escalate due to political pressure and economic vulnerability, especially with declining oil inventories [(17:06), (17:51)].

• Global Consequences: Pape warns of an impending global economic crisis triggered by a prolonged closure of Hormuz: “the world’s economy really is getting closer and closer to going off a cliff... It could happen in the middle of August” [(18:44), (19:26)].

• The “Trap” Explained: Military actions fuel nationalist outrage and revenge in Iran, leading to intractable cycles of escalation, with the risk of “a new global depression” brought on by economic disruption [(20:30)].

• The Balance of Power Framing: The conflict’s core is a “zero sum disagreement” over who controls Hormuz: if Iran succeeds, it becomes a new “center of world power,” if not, the U.S. retains dominance in the Gulf [(15:20), (21:20)].

5. Memorable Moments and Notable Quotes

Atmosphere in Tehran

• Reporter at Mosque ([01:28], [03:56], [07:55]):
  "I'm now inside the biggest mosque in Tehran and there are tens of thousands of people here. You can hear them shouting. They are saying, revenge, revenge, revenge. All of them shouting in one voice that the supreme leaders, how death must be avenged. How? Classic Iranian cheer. Death to America."

Ground Realities & Regime Resilience

• Richard Engel ([04:40]): "Other people who don't like the regime were telling me reluctantly, well, you got to give it to them. They did fight a tough fight, and they moved in, providing social services. Every time there was a bombing, the state and the Basij were there putting out the flames and putting out the fires, and they earned a lot of credibility and respect."
• On regime's challenge to Iranians:
  "If the United States and Israel, two nuclear powers, can't topple this government, how are we, the unarmed Iranian citizens, supposed to do it?"

Professor Robert Pape's Analysis

• On strategic failure ([12:21]):
  "There's no doubt that the United States and Israel have failed strategically to this point... strategically they have failed because Iran controls Hormuz."
• On upcoming escalation ([17:06]): "We are going to likely have ground operations unfold where we're actually on the coast of Iran. I would say this is 70% likely."
• On global risks ([18:44]): "The world's economy really is getting closer and closer to going off a cliff. It could happen in the middle of August, according to the best."
• Escalation metaphor ([19:30]): "We are on the Titanic. We saw an iceberg, and everybody said, don't hit that iceberg, and we're still going to the iceberg."

On Political Stakes for Trump

• Pape ([15:20]): "If Trump owns the L, Richard, then he will be the loss that puts it on his chest the way the Iranians want him to own it. Then he will be the loser and he will be the lamest of lame ducks even before the midterms."

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Important Timestamps

• [00:44-04:40] – Engel’s Iran trip: access, crowds, regime narratives, street sentiment
• [05:00] – Regime transition, questions about Mujtaba Khamenei
• [07:55] – Experience reporting under fire, regime confidence, IRGC interviews
• [09:11] – Popular unity, funeral crowd sizes, regime boost amid war
• [11:39-24:21] – Interview with Professor Robert Pape:
  • [12:21] – Strategic failure and Hormuz
  • [13:12] – Escalation trap stages
  • [14:13] – Preparation for stage 3 (ground operations)
  • [17:06] – 70% chance of U.S. ground operations
  • [18:44] – Oil inventories, economic crisis risk
  • [19:30] – Titanic metaphor
  • [21:20] – Stage four (pullback) and choices ahead

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Tone and Language

• Richard Engel’s reporting is urgent, vivid, and firsthand, blending caution with deep experience.
• Professor Pape provides analytical, often sobering and historically grounded perspectives, using metaphors (“Titanic,” “escalation trap”) and references to 20th-century leadership failures to caution listeners.

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Conclusion

This episode pulls listeners directly into the volatile dynamics of the current US-Iran conflict, offering rare access to Iranian society during crisis and a rigorous, unsettling analysis of the likely trajectory: toward further escalation, possible regional war, and severe global consequences. Professor Robert Pape’s “escalation trap” framework and Engel’s on-the-ground vignettes together present a deeply informed, but ominous assessment of the months ahead.

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To submit listener questions or engage with the show: email theworldsky.uk or comment on The World’s YouTube channel.

Transcript

[A]

How does a banana trigger a CIA backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open and reveal the world shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow Sky News the full story first.

[B]

Hello, it's me, Richard Engel. I'm just outside of Lisbon at the moment and I'm just back from Iran where I was at the state funeral for the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated on the first day of the war in a joint U. S. Israeli operation.

[A]

Donald Trump had warned that America would attack again, and here was confirmation.

[C]

It's like the ship on the Titanic hitting the iceberg. We are on the Titanic. We saw an iceberg and everybody said, don't hit that iceberg. And we're still going to the iceberg. The supreme Leader's funeral cortege swarmed on the streets of Tehran and by huge crowds.

[D]

I'm now inside the biggest mosque in Tehran and there are tens of thousands of people here. You can hear them shouting. They are saying, revenge, revenge, revenge. They want to make a deal so badly.

[B]

I just don't know if they're worthy

[D]

of making a deal. I don't know that they're going to honor the deal.

[C]

What is your message to President Trump today?

[D]

We kill you. All of us want to kill you.

[B]

Yalda is away for today's episode, but hopefully we'll be back together for next week. And I have a lot to share for you this week about my recent trip to Iran. It was extraordinary. I had an enormous amount of access. This is something the Iranians wanted to show, but it is not clear that the war is going necessarily in the direction they hope it is. And I'll be talking with political scientist Robert Pape about where this war is going. Is it on an escalatory path? He certainly thinks we are heading in that direction. So first of all, I want to tell people about this amazing trip that I just got back from in Iran. I flew into Tehran and I will tell you what, what happened. When I got in, we had great access. I wasn't the only journalist there that were a few dozen teams. So this is an extraordinary number for Iran and perhaps because of that number of journalists, there weren't any restrictions placed upon us. We could go wherever we wanted. We could eat out Walk around the streets, talk to anyone. We wanted to. A lot of access for a country that hasn't been giving very much one because they were probably overwhelmed. They didn't have the staff to sort of follow and monitor that many crews, probably. All told, there were maybe 100 journalists in Iran for that week. And they also didn't seem like they thought they had anything to hide. They wanted people to be out on the streets where there were hundreds of thousands, millions of people over the course of the week who were getting free food from the state, who were carrying pictures of the late Supreme Leader. They were wearing black. I was able to get right up into the Masallah, which is a main mosque prayer area in Tehran. I saw the casket lying in state there, and people were shouting, death to America.

[D]

I'm now inside the biggest mosque in Tehran and there are tens of thousands of people here. You can hear them shouting. They are saying, revenge, revenge, revenge. All of them shouting in one voice that the supreme leaders, how death must be avenged. How? Classic Iranian cheer. Death to America. President Trump said that the Islamic revolutionary system that has been in place here, the Islam, the Iranian regime, would be changed, would be overthrown. That never happened. In fact, many Iranians say that a new generation is in charge now, a new generation that is even more hard lying than the previous one.

[B]

They were angry, but they were also shouting victory slogans. They believe they won this war. And that is a belief you have from government officials down to the people on the street, including people who are in the opposition. I didn't just speak to people who were there wearing the black, carrying the posters. Other people who don't like the regime were telling me reluctantly, well, you got to give it to them. They did fight a tough fight, and they moved in, providing social services. Every time there was a bombing, the state and the Basij were there putting out the flames and putting out the fires, and they earned a lot of credibility and respect. There were never any shortages during the war. Haven't been thus far. Even when the bombing started again and I was in Tehran, there were no shortages in the shops. People were calm even as the bombings resumed. There weren't bombings in Tehran, but they were not too far away and primarily in the south. One guy I know who's not a fan of the regime said that the conclusion he and many others had drawn is if the United States and Israel, two nuclear powers, can't topple this government, how are we, the unarmed Iranian citizens, supposed to do it? And that's a very tough conclusion. And I think that's a tough conclusion that the state is hoping on, hoping to prove that they're not going anywhere, they're there. And that this transition of power from the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to his son Mushtaba has been successful and smooth. But there's one big problem. Where is Mujtaba? And that is something that the Iranians are keenly curious about, aware of every day. There was the speculation game. Are we going to see him today? Is he hiding out because he's wanted? And the Israelis say he's wanted, so making an appearance would be strategically dangerous? Or is he hiding out because he's disfigured? Or is he some sort of captive pope, like happened in the Middle Ages, where you have the head of a theocracy being really run by other powers, by the military or the nobles, the elite. People don't know. And until he's seen, I think that's going to be a question a lot of people are going to have. But later on, we're gonna have an interview. We go through all where this war is going next with a brilliant professor from the University of Chicago who's been following this war very closely and thinks it's just gonna escalate right now. But before we get into that interview, let's take some questions. And people have been writing in. So thank you very much, our listeners. They've been sending these questions to theworldky.uk and the first is from Ayub. On last week's episode, Yalda mentioned that you were in Iran. I'm assuming you were there when the US and Iran were exchanging strike. What was that experience like? And how did you and your team navigate that situation? So, yes, we were there. And first we landed at the airport, by the way. The Iranians didn't even search our bags. They didn't even go through customs. They waved us through. The best welcome that I've had in Iran. Welcome with a smile. Came in, went from a car, went to a hotel. I was there at a hotel I'd known before. Bunch of journalists were there. They had a media table set up with coffee on it where you could just, you know, take some cookie and coffee. They really wanted to sort of greet us well. And then they let us do what

[D]

we want to do.

[B]

Spoke to the rev guard. They also believe they firmly won the war. They also want revenge for Khamenei and say that this isn't going to be over until they get that revenge. Which is why I think you Saw President Trump, you know, expressing such concern about his personal safety.

[D]

I'm number one on the kill list for Iran.

[B]

They're lovely people. I'm number one. The Iranians have said they want justice to be settled, and they have long memories. Then to go back to this question, when the bombings restarted, it started by Iran, by the way. Iran began this. Iran started firing on some ships because they were using different routes in the Strait of Hormuz that Iran hasn't approved. This is all about Iran maintaining control of the Strait of Hormuz. And it says the Strait of Hormuz will be open on our terms. On Iran's terms. You have to use this line of traffic, and ships weren't using that. So Iran shot at them. President Trump responded, attacking for a couple of days. Iran has responded again, and the escalation started. And we will see where we go from here. We handled it pretty easily. We went downstairs, we filmed. We were able to report the entire time. And we never had any threat or hassle because it was quite calm. That doesn't always happen, Ayyub. In conflicts, sometimes there's tense situations. The government isn't always that friendly. The Iranian government isn't always that friend. But I think it's a sign of how confident they are at this stage that they left us free to work and report, even last minute, even as the bombs are falling. So, next question. This one is from Suzanne in London. I saw reports about huge turnouts in Iran for Khamenei's funeral, some claiming tens of millions of people attended the various ceremonies. Has this war united the Iranian people rather than fragmented them, or is there still a large percentage of the population who oppose the regime? Great question, fundamental question. Thank you, Suzanne. There were millions of people on the streets. I don't know the number, but there were millions. I've been in many demonstrations before. It wasn't tens of thousands. There were millions. If you added up the different days, because it was several days of events in Tehran, which is a big city, then more events in Qom, then again in Mashhad, which is another large city. So we're talking about millions of people. And it did unite segments of society behind the government to a degree. The people who hated the government still hate the government. And I don't think it changed anyone's opinion. But when you are attacked, at least temporarily, the people who are defending you become the people who are defending you, whether you like them or not. So the regime probably got a boost of popularity, but I'm not sure if it changed any people. But what it showed their opponents is they're not going anywhere. It showed the opponents they're tough and they're dug in and a couple of protests aren't going to remove them.

[A]

How does a banana trigger a CIA backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.

[B]

And joining us now to talk about Iran, where this war is going, is a professor at the University of Chicago. He is the founding director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, author of Bombing to Air Power and Coercion in War. We now have Professor Robert Pape joining us. So where do you think this war is right now and where is it going? Do you think it's been a failure? I just got back from Iran where the Iranian government is touting this as a huge success. They believe they want the war and they're trying to get the Iranian people to rally behind their victory and hold on to the leverage they've achieved. And we can break down each one of those things. How do you assess the conflict before we get into it?

[C]

Well, there's no doubt that the United States and Israel have failed strategically to this point. They have been tactically successful in the sense of bombs hitting targets, bombs killing leaders, bombs destroying missile launchers. But strategically they have failed because Iran controls Hormuz. And what you are now seeing is the stage of the war where the United States is trying to reverse the defeat. That's what's occurring. That's what's in front of us now. This is tragic but fully predictable, Richard. So I have been modeling the bombing of Iran for 20 years. Three days before the February 28th war started, I opened up a substack called the escalation trap, where I put out the three stages of the escalation trap that was going to unfold over the next six months or a year.

[B]

And do you think we're in that escalation trap now?

[C]

Oh, for sure we're in it now and have been for a while. Some of us just didn't know that. So stage one is the opening where bombs would hit targets, bombs would kill leaders, bombs would hit missile sites, but the Iran regime would not collapse in. It would stiffen. And that would lead to then stage two which is Iran would grow stronger and take Hormuz. And that what this would be is Iran would now control Hormuz and would become the rising regional hegemon. And also I published a piece in the New York Times on April 4 that Iran, if over the next year and a half, if that continued, would become the fourth center of world power. And so there's a whole lot underneath that. But now, what happened after stage two where Iran controlled Hormuz? We of course tried punishment attacks. So I've been studying punishment campaigns with air power, economic sanctions, blockades for 30 years. I've taught for the US Air Force and also advised every White House.

[B]

So, so where are we now?

[C]

We are now knocking on stage three. We're about to go to what are limited ground options and more aggressive efforts to take Hormuz back. This is what the repositioning of the forces have been in the last two weeks. It's not just general repositioning. This is what the bombing patterns have been in the last few weeks. This is suppression bombing to get prepared for more aggressive ground options here. Now, it's not that President Trump has signed the order for the ground options, and I'm sure there's still hope that he can get ships through the southern passage of Hormuz and avoid the ground options. But this is not a situation where this is iffy and we're doing pretexts anymore. Notice there's not even the pretense of negotiations anymore.

[B]

And so are you saying that the US and maybe Israel are gonna have to relaunch the war again to try and do what they didn't do the first time and make this a victorious war?

[C]

Yes, and it'll be a bigger, worse war. So this is not a situation where we're relaunching the old war. So a lot of the media now is saying, well, are we going back to March and April? No, this will be much worse than that.

[B]

So we're not just restarting the car again?

[C]

We're not restarting the car. We're going to take the car and we're going to focus it in a different direction. And Richard, you will probably know that in April, the Pentagon, they did a classified study of what would happen if we tried to retake Hormuz. And they said it would be a six month war. So if your listeners will Google that, they'll see the New York Times story in April that a six month war is likely coming here. Now, there'll be good days, there'll be bad, there'll be good Weeks. But this is not a situation where this is going to be over and we're about to end this in just a day or two. What's going on is a fundamental zero sum disagreement about who will control the Strait of Hormuz. Is it going to be Iran that will control it, in which case they will become the fourth center of world power in about a year, year and a half the dominant state in the Persian Gulf and in the Middle East. Or is it going to be America, in which case Iran will go back to becoming the declining power. Hormuz is not just about some tolls. This is more than that. It's geopolitics of the first order and changing the balance of power in the region and really around the world. The second problem he's got is the opinion polls here are out and MAGA is not supporting the idea of the mou. Trump needs MAGA to turn out in droves. And if Trump owns the L, Richard, then he will be the loss that puts it on his chest the way the Iranians want him to own it. Then he will be the loser and he will be the lamest of lame ducks even before the midterms.

[B]

You've had your finger on the pulse here. Help us along, be our Nostradamus here. What does this six month look like?

[C]

We are going to likely have ground operations unfold where we're actually on the coast of Iran. I would say this is 70% likely.

[B]

And wouldn't they immediately come under attack? So let's say a bunch of US Marines take these beachheads or these islands and hold them.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And they're going to be constantly attacked.

[C]

That's right. That's why I just published a lengthy post explaining why is Trump escalating if everybody says he won't because of the midterms? Because this is what everybody has been saying for months. He wouldn't possibly do this.

[B]

Well, and that's counterintuitive. The gut instinct in America and other places is that he's dialing this down and will try and dial this down into the midterm. You're saying no, no, no, he escalates.

[C]

No, I'm saying this is what's happening now, this week, next week. We're knocking on the door of this now, not in November. And it's about politics here, Richard. I don't just study military bombs hitting targets. The escalation trap is about how military action impacts politics.

[B]

What's the trap part?

[C]

Remember a few weeks ago when Trump signed the mou, he said our Oil is going to run out in four weeks, and I don't want to become Herbert Hoover. Well, Trump signed the MOU and the oil did not open. Now, we can argue why Hormuz didn't open, but those oil inventories, Richard, are running down on the same rate as before. Trump is going to become Herbert Hoover for sure. For sure.

[B]

Hoover's name is associated with poverty and misery in the United States.

[C]

That's exactly right. And it's because it was a global depression as well. It wasn't only in the United States. And what you are seeing here is there is real risk, and nobody really knows how bad it's going to get, but everybody knows that it's a matter of how bad. It's not not bad. So as those oil inventories run down, as Hormuz remains closed, all of our buffers are spare gas that we kept in the garage to run the car if it ran out of out of gas. That's gone, Richard. So what's happening is the world's economy really is getting closer and closer to going off a cliff. It could happen in the middle of August, according to the best.

[B]

So you think this reinvigorated war creates a new global depression?

[C]

It's the other way around. It's going to look that way here to a lot of people, Richard, but the reality is Trump's anticipating that. I think this is what he told us two weeks ago. He was very forthright. He said, I will sign the MOU because I don't want there to be a Great Depression and I've become Herbert hoover. And then J.D. vance gave Long interviews where he said, Trump told us to use the MoU to refill the oil inventories. It didn't happen. Which means the world's economy is like the ship on the Titanic hitting the iceberg. We are on the Titanic. We saw an iceberg, and everybody said, don't hit that iceberg, and we're still going to the iceberg. And now everybody's saying, what are we going to do? And also, to be clear, Richard, I would not advise the President to be doing this, restarting this war, go down this road. I am not advocating this, but you just came back from Iran. So the problem with the punishment campaigns that, that we inflicted on Iran is they were always going to stimulate large amounts of nationalist revenge. That's what happened when Nazi Germany bombed London in World War II. That's why the British firebombed German cities. This was not some accident, okay? They wanted payback and they wanted to kill a million 900,000 German civilians. That's in the operational plans of Churchill. So this was not some accident that happened. And what you're seeing here in Iran is the revenge factor is coming fast and furious. And then when the Americans are killed, the American public will not back away. They will become more incensed themselves. And I've been warning about this for months on podcasts. People kept thinking, well, if there's some American casualties, this will make America pull back even more. Right? No.

[B]

So what's stage four?

[C]

Stage four is where we pull back. This is where we were. President Trump tried to go initially here with the mou. He was essentially saying to Iran, if you'll just let the straits open, give me a fig leaf here, some way I can have a face saving way out, I'll sort of pull back. I'll even let you keep some of your uranium, enriched uranium. Notice what he was talking about there as holding out the carrots. Well, what that is is allowing Iran to rise as the rising regional power. That's what stage four is. That was always a tension. So once you're at stage two, there's a fork in the road. Either you do stage three, which is you take Hormuz back, or you do stage four, where you allow Iran to become the fourth center of world power. And what Trump did is he kind of dabbled with stage four, but he couldn't really bring himself to own the loss that would mean, because it would mean he would become not Herbert Hoover, but Lyndon Johnson, the president during the Vietnam War who was embarrassed so much we can't even remember his name for failing in Vietnam. So these were President Trump's choices. Does he want to become Herbert Hoover or Lyndon Johnson? But Iran is not a pipsqueak power. So I'm often hearing on the media, well, this is a big power. United States against a small power runs, as you know, 92 million people. They've got satellites. The idea that we're still talking about Iran as a pipsqueak power here is only setting the public up for not really understanding what's coming. And the problem here is that gotta keep in mind the Iran Iraq war. Iran went on for eight long years, hundreds of thousands of dead here. This was a grinding war of attrition. And so the idea that Iran just gonna be scared of President Trump's tweets here, this is just not realistic. We're knocking on the door of St and that door is starting to actually

[B]

open to re win a loss with more power and a slightly different strategy with Israel or Alone.

[C]

Oh, Israel could come in on multiple different ways we're going to do what we did in 2003, which is what we're doing right now is telling them to stay out. The problem for Israel is Iran's not going to let them stay out. You see. So this is not necessarily just up to Israel. See, we keep pretending, Richard, we're in control. No, we lost control on February 28, the first bomb that hit and killed that supreme leader. That's when Trump lost control and he's been trying to get control back for five months ever since, and he's not gotten it back yet. And that's what's going on in the escalation trap.

[B]

I've just realized we need to talk more often. I'm glad you've got a big and loyal following on Substack. It sounds like you got a vaccine, very active group there and you have a community of people who are engaged. So thank you very much for bringing us into your conversation and for having this conversation with us and for helping us see where you think this is going. It's been very illuminating.

[C]

Real pleasure, Richard, real pleasure to speak with you.

[B]

I appreciate your time. Thank you. So that was Professor Robert Pape. He's very confident about where he sees this going. And many people I've spoken to are also convinced that this is heading in the wrong direction, that the US Is heading back to war, that Israel might get involved again, that Iran could also fall victim to its own sense of hubris, that Iran could try and over win. So you could have the United States trying to correct a loss and you could have Iran being too confident, too secure in their position that they make a mistake. So this will certainly be going for some time, but it does seem like we are heading toward an escalation and it may be, as the professor described, an escalation trap. Thank you so much for listening and if you have any questions for next week, email [e-mail] or comment on our YouTube channel where you can watch all of our episodes. Just Search for the World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim. Bye Bye.

[A]

How does a banana trigger a CIA backed coup? Do AirPods herald the arrival of a new global order? What do LED Lights say about the future of humanity? I'm Ed Conway and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open and reveal the world shaping forces hidden inside. This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow.