A war advisor who has offered his expertise to the US government for the last 25-years has issued a stark warning amid the conflict with Iran.
More than enough people have put their two pence in about the war that's currently raging across the Middle East, but Robert Pape is a person we might want to take heed of.
He's a political scientist who specialises in international security affairs as well as being a professor at the University of Chicago - oh, and he's been an extremely valuable source of information for the White House since 2001.
Pape has been a key advisor to every president who has taken office since the devastating September 11 attacks and he helped to shape the States' military strategy until 2024.
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The author of Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War has now shared his expert insight with us mere mortals while appearing on Steven Bartlett's Diary of a CEO podcast.
The 65-year-old war advisor explained why he believes that President Donald Trump and his allies in Israel might have bitten off more than he can chew when it comes to Iran.
He kicked things off by reminding people that although bombs hit targets and cause mass devastation, he believes they also have another function - 'changing politics'.
Pape said that although the world 'tends to focus on the tactical success of bombing', there's a bigger picture to consider too.
"The problem is, wars are not just about the hardware," he told Bartlett. "They’re not just about the military operation of putting a bomb on a target...they’re about politics."
Pape explained that for the last 20 years, he has been 'running simulations on a war with Iran' with his students - and now, this situation has become a reality.
He told how he went through possible targets, attack plans, the bombing of key nuclear facilities such as Natanz, Fordo, Isfahan with his pupils, while hypothesising 'what is going to happen'.
According to Pape, the US would have a '90+ percent' chance of blitzing key locations in Iran would be a simple feat thanks to Northrop B-2 Spirit bombers.
He alleged that in the eyes of the US, the 'whole point' of raining explosives down on Iran is to 'get at the 5%, 20%, 60% enriched uranium' the country is hoarding.
"That’s the material for bombs," the war advisor explained. "And last May, it was very clear they had the material for 16 nuclear bombs."
At the end of each simulation he has completed over the last two decades, Pape 'made some predictions'. After the last one he did, he admitted that the forecast for the future isn't that bright.
He told Bartlett that 'panic' would likely set in for the US in around 12 months, as the White House will realise that the nuclear material Trump has been intent on destroying could be 'dispersed anywhere in Iran'.
"It could be dispersed anywhere now," Pape went on. "And how many of those are actually developing toward a bomb? We will not know. So what will we do? Regime change."
Although Trump has been telling the world that Operation Epic Fury has been going well, Pape said he believes that the US is 'stuck in a trap of our own making' - before revealing the 'key consequence' of this aforementioned trap.
"We’re losing control," he continued. "We are losing control of the situation. And what you were seeing with President Trump is, he’s trying to regain control."
Pape claimed that the thing the US is 'losing control' of is keeping track of where Iran's 'nuclear material is'.
"We now have civilian satellites and you can see them moving things," he said, offering some commentary on what's been unfolding in recent weeks, before sarcastically adding: ""What would they be moving around the nuclear areas, I wonder? What are they moving here?
"It’s most likely going to be that nuclear material. You can see [Iran] has prepared for this war just as we have, except they’ve been preparing for how to be resilient, how to now lash back in increasingly aggressive ways.
"They are winning the escalation part of the war. And that’s not an accident. You can see this coming in stages."
The strategist believes that President Trump is 'on the horns of a dilemma' which could see him put boots on the ground. It sounds like the commander-in-chief could do with a chat with Pape, pronto.
Topics: US News, Iran, World News, Politics
Olivia Burke