Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/15/26: Lebanon Invasion Doomed, Scientists Go Missing, Professor Pape On Iran Ceasefire

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

Emily and Saagar discuss Lebanon invasion doomed, scientists go missing, Professor Pape on Trump ceasefire.    Lauren Conlin: https://x.com/conlin_lauren   Shaiel Ben-Ephraim: https://x.com/academic_la  Robert Pape: https://escalationtrap.substack.com/    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com  Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's so funny. Share each day with me each night, each morning. Listen to Nora Jones is playing along on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breaking points.com. Joining us now is Shail Ben Affrey. He is a geopolitical analyst and has put out a lot of interesting stuff

on this new meeting between the Israelis and the Lebanese for potential ceasefire. Shail, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. Sure, always a pleasure. So let's go and put this up here on the screen, D-1. The Lebanese and Israeli diplomats held this face-to-face meeting here in Washington.

It was the first of its kind in many, many years. But you are very skeptical of some sort of a ceasefire. Could you maybe set the table for some of the history leading up to this moment and what you make of the development so far? Yeah, well, this is the first face-to-face meeting since the 1980s when also violence, extreme violence in the region led to a series of meetings under American pressure and through the mediation of other Middle Eastern countries.

countries. And that's again what happened here. The United States has put a lot of pressure on the Lebanese government and on Israel to discuss a ceasefire. But there's absolutely no chance of it succeeding because Israel has plans to dismember Lebanon completely take over a security zone all the way up to the Littani River. And what the Lebanese want is just a ceasefire, just for Israel to stop firing. But Israel wants part of the country and wants Lebanon to try to dismantle Hezbollah. Now, the public opinion in Lebanon is wildly against any kind of deal with Israel. Because the kind of deal that Israel and the United States are looking for involves normalization

of the relationship and peace while Israel takes away part of Lebanon's land. And even if the normalization involved giving up no land, there is very few people in Lebanon who are for normalization. 70 to 80

percent, depending on pole, are against normalization without giving up land. With giving up land, you probably wouldn't find a single Lebanese person who would be willing to normalize. And meanwhile, Israel is demanding that Lebanon dismantle Hezbollah, which there's no support for whatsoever in Lebanon, especially with this

invasion. Before this invasion, there probably would have been some support for it, but much less now. But even if Lebanon wanted to dismantle Hezbollah, they couldn't. Israel can't dismantle Hezbollah with its massive army. And Lebanon couldn't. Lebanon's also on the verge of becoming a failed state since 2022. Lebanon has been involved in an almost complete economic collapse. their currency has almost no value. They've lost 15% of their population leaving, and that's mostly liberals and moderates who might want normalization.

So the whole thing is a farce. Yeah, we can start rolling some of this footage in D2. This is recent strikes in southern Lebanon. And, Chal, can you help us understand, to your point about support previously for dismantling Hezbollah, defeating Hezbollah, how significant these strikes have been? and basically how they may have undermined the cause of actually squelching Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Yeah, well, I wouldn't want to oversell the prospects of anything happening regarding squelching Hezbollah before all this happened. But as you can see, Israel is committing all sorts of war crimes and atrocities in Lebanon, the kind of atrocities that no country could, put up with silently and that in public opinion absolutely will not allow to to to for the government to facilitate you know not only are has Israel killed um all these people a large portion of which are our children as usual but and not only is Israel operating deep inside lipidon but it's destroying entire villages the first three lines of villages um And what you're seeing in that footage is the first line of villages. The first three lines of villages above Israel are slated for complete and total destruction.

Every single building is going to be destroyed. And instead of those villages, Israel is going to build a network of military bases. There is a big debate in the IDF over whether to continue to destroy the next levels and the next levels and where these bases will be. the occupation of Israel's planning is permanent. Every single person in Lebanon is very aware of that. And no matter what your feelings are about Hezbollah, no matter what your feelings are about the West and normalization, no one is willing to countenance this complete destruction of the Lebanese nation.

And even people who hate Hezbollah the most and hate the Shiites of the most, can't imagine allowing this sort of thing to happen. Hezbollah is the only force in Lebanon that is standing up to Israel, and that will increase their popularity among neutral people. And this isn't the first time this happened. This happened also in the previous conflict and in much greater magnitude of order in the second Lebanon war. And also in 2000, when Israel withdrew from Lebanon, that was also a big boon for Hezbollah's popularity, put Hezbollah on the verge of controlling the entire. country. And now, with the Shiites being an even larger part of the population for demographic reasons, because people from other sectors are leaving and because they have a higher birth rate,

this will possibly once again turn Hezbollah into the leading political force in the country, and that's due to Israeli policy. And this is, yeah, this is very important to underscore Shail. And one of the reasons we wanted to get into the nitty-gritty is that this is vital to the success, or at least it seems, of any sort of deal between the United States and Iran. A core tenet of that was a ceasefire with Lebanon. Now, as you're explaining it, because I don't think people may understand all of the details, is that these talks are between the Lebanese government and the Israelis. But it is to resolve fundamentally a Hezbollah problem, which they have at least a limited amount of control over from the Lebanese government, or maybe no control at all,

because the Hezbollah has rejected this. So for some sort of tenable ceasefire, to occur from the Israeli side, it would effectively mean that the Lebanese government would have to agree to de facto annexation, occupation, and control of half of this country. Is that correct? That is correct. Yes. Lebanon would have to completely surrender the sovereignty of part of the country. That is an Israeli demand. They're giving Lebanon a map, and they're saying in the south, there's going to be three different zones, one where we completely directly control and destroy everything, another one where we have joint control and one where Israel has the ability to operate freely. There's no government in the world that can agree to that formally, even if they agree to it de facto,

which is also unlikely. Agreeing to it formally is like committing suicide for the government of any sovereign nation. And you hit on another very important point, which is that even if Lebanon wanted a ceasefire, they can't have a ceasefire because the Lebanese government and Lebanese army are not fighting against Israel. Hezbolyas, the Americans and Israelis know this perfectly well. So Lebanon can't deliver what Israel is asking for even if it wanted to. And it wouldn't want to because they want Israel to leave its territory as any sovereign nation would. So this is really one of the most ridiculous negotiations imaginable between a government that not only is,

not the one firing but also doesn't it isn't able to stop the firing but also it doesn't have the legitimacy to reach the deal that the united states and israel wanted to so the only reason israel is agreeing to this is because it gives it covered to continue its operation in lebanon with some american uh support because americans have been um pressured into stopping this from some of their arab allies and uh that's the only reason it exists it's it's a fig leaf and people are talking about how historic it is and the whole thing is a joke. I was just going to say Reuters headline coming out of yesterday. US hosts rare Israel, Lebanon talks, quote, progress unclear. And then as soon as we're done with that headline, we can put the BBC headline from a couple of days ago up on the screen. Quote, Israel steps up strikes on Lebanon and Hezbollah attacks continue as talks loom. So to your point, Shail, that's stunning. I mean, if you're reading the tea leaves, and I'm curious for your take on what we've heard after the meetings that were hosted here in D.C. yesterday, brokered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, it confirms your suspicion, or it seems to really confirm your suspicion that this is a fig leaf, that this is a cover to continue with U.S. tacit backing strikes in southern Lebanon. Is that what you're reading after coming out of the last 24 hours, hearing from Israelis seeming to double down in their position after they left the

meeting? I mean, that's what it seemed like to me, but I'm curious as an expert, what you made of it. Yeah, so regarding American motivations, to be frank, sometimes it seems like the American officials making the decisions, Michael Rubio maybe doesn't fall into this category, sometimes are too clueless about the Middle East to really understand what they're doing. Sometimes what seems like being nefarious is actually complete ineptitude on their part. From the Israeli point of view, they know exactly what they're doing. they have made no intention whatsoever of stopping or slowing down. And yes, the level of strikes that we're seeing in Lebanon greatly increased once the United

States reached a deal with Iran in order to try to derail it. They won this war anyway. And this isn't the reason for the war in order to, in order to derail it. But that's a great bonus that they can get to derail it. it. So a fig leaf is even being charitable. Israel is using this war in these negotiations as a means of sabotaging the wider Iranian deal. And then are offering Lebanon basically what they are going to enforce either way, which is carving up their entire country. So yes, the whole thing is a fig leaf and it's a joke.

And I am almost surprised that Lebanon is agreeing to this. They must be under a lot of pressure from other countries of France, the United States, some of their Arab partners to do this because they're fully aware of what Israel is doing. The only country that benefits from the existence of these talks, aside from the United States, is Israel. They're basically, Lebanon's basically legitimizing what Israel is doing, even if they're not agreeing to it. by talking to them. That's an important point. Now, Shail, here's the big question. If they agreed to some sort of a ceasefire, which is occupation, control of half of the country, how would Iran view that?

Iran and Hezbollah, because ultimately they have to see it as a ceasefire, not just of on Hezbollah, but of not de facto occupation control. Is that acceptable to them? Like, is this such a long-term problem that any tenable solution either would include Israeli withdrawal or the continuation of the war? how do you see that? Well, to the Iranians, they absolutely can't agree to Israel achieving these goals officially. But unofficially for Iran, this is a good thing. Unofficially for Iran, this strengthens Hezbollah and the grip that they have on Lebanon at a time when they were very, very weak. You know, after, the last round of conflict, Israel had won that round. They managed to get a ceasefire that was

very much on American-Israeli terms. And they managed to convince a lot of people in Lebanon that, of course, Israel is aggressive towards Lebanon, but Hezbollah brought on Israeli aggression by getting involved in a war when Israel was at its most vengeful point after October 7th. So it looked like a terrible strategic mistake for Hezbollah and for Lebanon what had happened. But Israel squandered that by breaking the ceasefire repeatedly and by now trying to completely destroy it appears the state of Lebanon. This is all great for Iran. You know, Iran was really on the rock before this war, but this war has paradoxically revived their, their fortunes in the Middle East. Right now, between demographics and what Israel is doing,

Hezbollah are set to become once again the most important force in the country in a way that they haven't been since 2023. And that really allows Iran once again to rebuild its network of proxies. And with the support they now have from China and Russia, we actually could see Iran be the strongest that it's been in several years. They have other problems because Syria is now also starting to invade Lebanon. Israel's invading Lebanon. But that will make Hezbollah the resistance there to all this imperialism against Lebanon. People will either support Hezbollah or leave increasingly.

That's all very good for Iran. So Iran is going to want to see this through. They don't necessarily actually want to see. fire in Lebanon. They'll say that they do, but this is a process that plays into their hands. Makes sense. Well, Shail, thank you very much for your time. Really enlightening and very interesting. Thank you. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure. Good to see you. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

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Joining us now is Lauren Conlin. She is the East Coast contributor for LA Magazine. Lauren, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate your time. Sure. Thank you for having me and covering this story. Yeah. So let's talk. I mean, we've had a great amount of interest, a lot of inquiries around all of these missing scientists and some of these mysterious circumstances. Let's put this latest one up here on the screen. We have a missing nuclear official, becomes the the 10th person tied to this dark pattern surrounding U.S. secret. So top line, Lauren, you've actually dug into the circumstances of these. Is this a real story? Or is the Daily Mail or the tabloids?

Are they making it more out than it should be? Or should we all really be paying attention? I mean, I think we should all be paying attention. I think this is very important that this is coming to light. So I think the people that say, oh, well, you know, it's a coincidence because this happened in 2022. This happened in 2019. No one was paying attention then.

but we're paying attention now and what we're seeing is a pattern. And I don't want to sound cliche here because I think what's going on beyond some of the mysterious circumstances of these deaths or of these disappearances. You know, we're seeing names like Michael David Hicks, who was a NASA scientist. And, you know, off the top of my head, I'm like, well, I don't necessarily think that it's so odd that there's no cause of death listed. He didn't have an autopsy. You know, we don't know his religion, et cetera.

But then when you see a pattern, you know, someone else whose death kind of echoed that, like Frank Maywald. You have to wonder, is it one possibly, and I'm speculating, you know, they did take their own life. And this is because out of respect for the family, they don't want this out there. Or is it the elephant in the room here? Is it something bigger? Is it something connected to the government where these people have a lot of classified information, you know, and I don't even want to, I've gotten a lot of heat for saying that. And I want to be clear, I don't have proof of anything, but I am just saying the elephant

in the room. The government is not above this. And it doesn't always go through the president. The president doesn't always know what the hell is going on. Right? May not be our government. And so I go back to saying, you know, Tim Burchett, love him, love the guy. But he's like, President Trump will disrupt.

He will do this. Okay, go for it. We'll all be waiting. I just don't see that happening. President Clinton said he wanted to release the JFK files, you know, also the UFO files. That never happened. Obama, you know, really wanted to release the UAP files. Talks very highly about Area 51.

Nothing happened there. There's a reason for that, guys. And I know that whistleblowers have come out and said that we might be ready, right? As a society, we might be ready. I think it's twofold. I think it's a tough answer. What I will say, why we want more transparency now and why the House Oversight Committee is demanding these 46 UAP videos is because we are at war, guys.

I mean, it is very important because if you look at this list of videos, you know, they do indicate some videos or I'm sorry, some UAPs are flying over Iran in 2022. Syria, one shaped like a cigar. We're talking about conflict areas. So we are not able to tell in real time if this is a drone, if this is a UAP, or if this is some kind of enemy defense. And so I think that, you know, us getting transparency, it'll be a big, big difference in whether or not we face disaster or defense.

Well, and let's get this next headline up on the screen. This is from the New York Post last week on the case of Michael Hicks. Another mysterious NASA death as ninth scientist linked to secret programs dies. Now, in the case of Michael Hicks, this death was in July of 2023. The post reports, quote, it is unclear if there's any foul play linked to Hicks' death, but his obituary asks for donations in his memory to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. He joins eight other scientists or top officials who have died or disappeared recently. A couple of things I just want to zero in just from that last paragraph.

First of all, evidence of foul play, limited in this case, looks like they're asking for donations to Alcoholics Anonymous. Secondly, when they say, quote, recently, this is a death back in 2023. People are going into the records doing what journalists should do and trying to connect the dots, see if there are any more dots to be found, frankly. So are there similarities that stand out in these cases? I have seen a couple of them where it seems like maybe there's a substance, pre-existing substance condition, but that doesn't, or substance abuse condition.

But we don't have any confirmation. we don't know what that actually could mean in the context of the deaths and disappearances. Even that question of which of these are deaths and which of these are disappearances, now that we're up to 10, it's sort of all hard to wrap your head around. So maybe help us find patterns that you've noticed. Yeah, you're right about that. And we don't have enough info. I am in the process of reaching out to certain family members that I can find.

Some of these deaths, though, and I'm talking specifically about the deaths that we are 100% confirmed on, unlike Carl Gromair, these are very fresh. I don't feel, you know, as a human being just, you know, comfortable reaching out to a widow right away, right? But, you know, Michael David Hicks, it's been a few years. And I go back to saying, I don't necessarily think that his death is, is directly connected to, let's say, General McCaslin's death. I think Michael David Hicks' death could be more connected to Frank Maywald. And possibly, yes, they were dealing with substance abuse. issues and and that could be connected to everything that they were working on.

Can you explain that? Can you explain that? And I don't have proof of that. But yeah, go ahead. So can you just explain a little bit if people aren't super familiar like General McCaskin, we, you and I are familiar, Frank Maywald as well. What were they working on? What's the possible connection?

Because you've done a great job of actually highlighting the suspicious circumstances around these. Yeah. So Frank Maywalt, he was a NASA JPL scientist. He was a principal researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. And so he was trying to detect signs of human life on other planets. I obviously don't know what he found. He knows what he found.

I'm assuming a handful of people know what he found. I don't think Congress knew what he found, but I don't know. And Carl Grilmer, what I will say about his death, I connect Carl Grilmair's, or I'm sorry, let's go back. I will say Neil McAllen's death. General Neal McAllen, he was retired Air Force General. and he retired a number of years ago, but he was stationed at one point at Wright Patterson. That's in Ohio. And if you're not familiar, reportedly, they hold extraterrestrial debris from the 1947 Roswell crash there.

Again, I've never seen it with my own eyes. But he also worked with Monica Reza there. And she was a rocket science. She co-patented the Mondioy or co-invented the Mondioy. So she was very, very intelligent, as was General McCaslin. And Monica Reza disappeared while hiking in June of 2025 in California. And Neil McCaslin disappeared in February of 2025, just walking out of his house in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So these are months apart.

Monica Reza gives me chills, number one. She seemed to have disappeared into thin air. She was behind a friend or two while hiking about 30 feet. It's kind of like they look back and they're like, hey, and then a second later, or I don't even know, you know, a minute later, she's gone. Vanishes into thin air. There's very little known about this search. But what I could find was that they had a canine dog. They were sniffing around.

They found a hat. Her scent stopped at this hat. I mean, what? And she was actually marked, deceased and had like some kind of biodegradable burial. And I know that anybody can go online and do this. You know, I understand how that works. But that's very odd that someone would do that when there was no body. And there was no statement from NASA, no nothing.

We just kind of skimmed over this. And what I'll say is, and again, I don't have proof, but former FBI agent, Chris Swecker, he has a lot of great information and a lot of great intel about what happens when these people are possibly kidnapped and tortured for intelligence. And he's not saying it's by our own government, right? Right. We don't know who it is. We're not saying that it's not. Yeah.

Right? But there's all these options. And then Neil McCaslin, this is very similar to the 10th person missing, the 10th official, Stephen Garcia. Both of them were last seen in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I mentioned General McCaslin walked out of his home. At the time, his wife didn't know if any guns were missing from his gun safe. But officials from the sheriff's office later reported that he was missing a revolt. He didn't take his phone, didn't take his wallet, nothing that he would need, not his glasses.

And Stephen Garcia, and I think I mentioned this was February of 2026. Stephen Garcia, he is another official tied to, he worked, he had top security clearance at KCNSC out of New Mexico. He was in charge of all of the classified equipment and assets, tens of thousands of dollars. And, you know, this is through a source. I do not know his job description, you know, verbatim here. But he also was last seen walking around New Mexico with a handgun. And so, you know, with Stephen Garcia, it was stated by officials he could be a danger to himself.

Neil McCaslin, there was a silver alert. And his wife, in this very, in my opinion, disturbing 911 call kind of indicates that, quote, he may not want to be found. She said he deliberately changed his clothes before he left. She said he was experiencing this brain and mental fog. And this is one of the reasons that he retired. And she just said he was getting frustrated. But she never would have thought that it would have meant this. And she's been criticized about this 911 call.

And I don't want to criticize her because she called immediately, you know, when she realized he was gone and everybody reacts differently. I don't think that she would have thought that it would have been anything like this. She just said he was kind of frustrated. The last thing I'll say the last thing I heard from authorities was that they found an Air Force sweatshirt a couple of miles away, but they

have not confirmed whether or not that belongs to General McCaslin. So I've got to make some calls. And then lastly, I know I am blabbing so hard right now. It's good going. One of the deaths that I am very, very invested

in. And I think this is this kind of crosses over into some other things we're mentioning in society right now. But Carl Grilmer, he was a Caltech astrophysicist, reportedly a genius who's doing amazing work and finding water on other planets. He lived in Lano, California, in a very isolated area. I mean, you can pull up the map and you can just see his house very isolated. So in December of 2025, he sees a guy walking on his property, who we now know is Freddie Snyder carrying a rifle. And he's freaked out, obviously. So he calls 911 one. Freddie Snyder gets

arrested. He says, oh, I was going to the post office. I just needed this to protect myself against wild animals. Well, the post office was the other way. And he gets arrested. And for whatever reason, you know, they give him a felonies charge. And I shouldn't say for whatever reason, for whatever reason is they let him go. They release him ROR after that felony's charge. And by February 6th, prosecutors drop the charge entirely. The judge dropped the charge entirely. There's some kind of California penal code where essentially it says in lay terms,

if you don't have any priors, you know, something like this would make sense. We're going to drop this. We're not going to keep you coming back to court, etc. Well, that was February 5th by February 16th. Freddie Snyder allegedly goes back

and shoots Carl Grilmer in the torso on his porch at his home. And now Freddie Snyder is sitting at Twin Towers, I'm assuming, you know, pretty close to Nick Reiner and waiting arraignment. He gets arraigned April 29th. So what's crazy is that California is so ridiculous with their court dockets and their papers. I've had to write letters to get indictments. I've had to send FOIA requests here. But one thing I will say is Carl Grilmer's wife has spoken out.

I was right before I went on News Nation last week. The producers, we were all kind of dietic. and they were making calls. And his wife said, it's not connected to any of these other scientists. That's her belief. Let's fly back. Let's fly back. Let's fly back.

It's not connected. The Bernalillo County's Sheriff's Office in New Mexico has said, enough with the conspiracy theories. I get it. I totally get it. Neil McHastlin's wife also works in aerospace research and Carl Grilmer's wife, she's a widow. She probably saw this crazy person with her own eyes. but my question is, why was he released? Why was he there?

He was absolutely targeting him for a reason. This house is way too isolated. And reportedly he did live in the area, this Freddie Snyder guy, and neighbors, I say neighbors, because it's miles apart, they said he was a little unhinged. I mean, it's bothering me. I see what you're saying. If you look at every individual case, it is a possible explanation. And yet, in no way, you know, the widow. of course, they don't want to be harassed.

And anybody who's watching this, please don't harass these people. Right. And leave them alone at the very least. Let's go to the authorities and those are the people who we can ask. But as you said, members of Congress and others, they're worried about this. That seems to be maybe an indication of something bigger. Maybe they're just responding to media pressure. But from your view, maybe not each individual case, in totality, you see some sort of pattern.

You originally opened with UFOs. Why did you make that connection to UFO? Yeah, it's funny because I always grew up thinking that they're bogus. It's they're just something in an alien movie. And the more research you do, the more you realize how important it is that we understand what a UAP is. And I'm calling it a UAP because it just sounds less crazy. It really does. And I do, I just feel like it's, we're past the point of thinking, yes, aliens are going to come and invade our country.

It's not about that. The House Oversight Committee wrote this letter in March, but they were stemming it from a congressional meeting they had. I think it was back in September. They really started to push again for transparency. And again, this is for the national security reasons. This is a threat. We need to know what is going on in order to defend ourselves as Americans. And I think it's really important.

And what's so frustrating is that the, the list of UAPs that were actually due on today. Oh, I'm sorry, it was yesterday, April 14th, they were due. No one from the Pentagon responded until Rep. Anna Luna had to reach out. I know. And apparently, I mean, I was born at night, but not last night. Someone didn't pass the letter on to the proper authorities. So we're not getting it yet.

But they claim that this is coming. This is coming. And the president authorized this release. So we're going to see it soon. I'm just like, okay, guys, release another Epstein dump for us. So we look this way while you guys scramble. It's just, you know, it's so, it's so annoying. It's just, it's irritating.

And it's like, this is our tax money also. This is our money, you know, going to this. I don't know how much I'd like to know. I don't think we'll be told the truth. But I think, again, it's important to know that it's not just about independence day aliens sitting in glass, you know, cages and water. It's, it's more than that. This is war.

This is America's national defense. Yeah. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for your time. We've got another guest standing by. You were phenomenal. Everybody go follow Lauren on Twitter. We'll have a link down in the description. Appreciate your time and thank you for the work on this case.

Thank you so much for having me and discussing it. Yeah, it's fun. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never.

mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care, so they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he just serves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe.

On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting. Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians. Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave

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You know I... So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing Along on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Very excited now to be joined by our great friend of the show, Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, author of The Escalation Trap

on Substack, which everybody should go subscribe to. Thank you very much for joining us, sir. We appreciate your time. Oh, absolutely. Always great to talk to you. So let's go ahead and start with some of the latest news from the Washington Post. We'll put it up here on the screen. It appears now some thousands more U.S. troops are heading to the Middle East as Trump seeks to squeeze Iran. Professor, you have long held that these ceasefire talks and others remain either a cover or a delaying to the inevitable escalation to ground troops.

Just confirm your hypothesis. How are you looking at this structurally? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. This is exactly what I'm saying. So we can pay attention to the rhetoric, which is the noise, or we can pay attention to the movement of troops. which is the signal. And what you are seeing is over and over and over again, this has been now in our seventh week of this war,

there's all this noise about back and forth rhetoric, what does this mean or that mean coming out of the White House? But what you see are troop movements. And those troop movements are going in one direction. There's not troop movements coming out. There's troop movements going in. And they're going in, just as I said, they're going to be limited.

They're going to go in salami slicing, essentially. And that is what you are seeing. We are not on a path of peace. We are on a path. The war is metastasizing. And we are seeing thresholds being broken. There's multiple, and I'm glad to talk about those. But what you are really seeing is a path of escalation, and it is toward that stage three.

and this is just going to build. Right. And so actually, if you could break that down for us, that would be very helpful. I'm sure everybody, when you said, I could do it. Everyone in the audience was like, yes, please, including us, professor. So let us know. That's right. And our audience really is familiar with stage one, stage two, stage three, where stage

three is coming to the limited ground operations, which could expand. But let me just unpack what I mean by breaking threshold. So what we are seeing since the talks, since J.D. Vance came. out of Pakistan in his three-minute speech, which everybody should go and listen to. That three-minute speech was important for a couple reasons. Number one, he made absolutely blisteringly clear that we are not going to make concessions the United States. We're going to choose escalation over concessions. And number two, he made blisteringly clear. He personally is on board with the escalation. So the hope that we were had J.D. Vance was going to kind of push us over to another

side. That really has disappeared. Now, what you are seeing with the military blockade is, and I can understand why people are confused, I've studied these for 30 years. This is part of that repertoire of what I study. What you are seeing is it's breaking thresholds, including just this morning with the news out of Iran. So number one, it's breaking a threshold. It's breaking a threshold. in the region where now the United States is using military force to shut down Hormuz against Iran. And what that is doing is widening the war inside of the region because Iran, as completely predictably, has just responded by, you do this, we're going to shut down that other choke point, or they'll try that other choke point in the Red Sea. So that would take another hunk of oil

off the market here if they do that. And the Houthis, they have the excellent proxy with which to do that. And of course, they have their missiles and drones. But number two, another threshold that's being crossed here is notice that it's China who gets a lot of the oil and who has flagged some ships. So what this means is that U.S. naval blockade

is now going right up against China. Now, we have not sunk a ship. We have not, you know, but this is an act of war. A naval blockade is not a political statement. It's an act of war. It says you either go back or we sink you. We shoot you. That is a very, very important threshold because obviously China now is this is another actor

and that actor's got 600 nuclear weapons. So we need to understand. This is not, again, going up against, you know, Panama, Greenland. We're breaking real thresholds here. And then there's the third threshold, which is when you bottle up the entire Strait of Hormuz, and then possibly also now the Red Sea gets in, gets bottled up with this. This is essentially another threshold here where you're locking in the consequences for the world's economy for at least weeks, if not months from now.

And there's already the stories, the different economic organizations are starting to come out on my substack this week. I have a very, I wrote this on the plane back and forth from London, so I have this long explanation of what happens in these blockades so people can understand the consequences for the world's economy over time, 45 day, 60 day, 90 day. And this is just now locking in that analysis here. So we are really heading to not just, it won't just be like one giant cliff. I'm explaining there's a series of decline,

a little bit like roller coaster, a series of these declines, which we need to expect. And the markets just simply aren't paying attention to that. Yeah, Professor, I saw your comments on that. Yeah, and I think it's very important to underscore. What you're trying, the Trump administration has done, I mean, honestly, a shockingly good job of just,

job-owning the oil markets and the stock market, they have convinced them that the blockade or a ceasefire will inevitably lead to some sort of memorandum of understanding that will return to normal. You have consistently maintained that is absolutely not going to happen. And yeah, I do want to go a little bit into your first thesis, which I think really struck a lot of our viewers and myself, is about how Iran has become this new world power. And a piece of news that I instantly thought of you with is F4. let's put this up there on the screen, was this U.S. carrier, the George H.W. Bush, which it has been revealed has had to sail around the entire continent of Africa rather than transit through the

Red Sea, specifically because of fear of the Houthis in the Bab al-Mendeb Strait. I mean, what do you make of that for this, you know, reflection of power that Iran can project to force a multi-billion dollar, you know, multi, multi-billion dollar aircraft. You are just so on it. And I really, this is one of the reasons I love coming on because you're, you're not just hearing my words. You're seeing the implications with the new piece of information. So what you are seeing here is a power projection capability by Iran.

So we are used to thinking of Iran back in pre-February, 2028 time period, where we're thinking we've been told Iran is crushed. It's on its last legs. Just one more nudge. And there's this pro-democracy movement that's totally going to take over. This was always extremely unrealistic. It was the most exaggerated version of the weakness of Iran, which was just right. Well, what the reality is, and you see this with their drones here, is that as their drones have reached, they can and missiles have reached, it's not just about a short-term thing, they have reached across the region and even further than that. You would not have our carriers essentially a thousand miles away here

if it was not for Iran's power projection capability. Well, power projection is what we define. Well, one of the leading indicators of a world power. And notice, Secretary Higsev said in his briefings, which he has now stopped giving, of course, but what he said in his briefings was, we've taken away their power projection capability. No, we haven't.

That's that victory rhetoric, meeting escalation reality, which you're now demonstrating here. And this is also, by the way, when the Iranians are making their threat this morning, they're not simply saying this is only going to be a threat to the Red Sea choke point with the Houthis. we need to understand those destroyers here that are within range now, there are 300 sailors on those

destroyers. Now, they don't have to be sunk for those people to be hurt and killed. You can have fires. You can have a lot of things happen under those attacks, which is why none of the oil tankers themselves want to go through and risk this, you see. So this is an extremely tense situation. So we are not de-escalating the situation. We are escalating the situation. We are escalating the situation. And let me just add one more point here, if I might, because I'm getting this in emails from some really smart people who aren't yet ready to say I can identify them and we can go, but these are not, these are, these are really, really smart people. And what they're asking me is, why exactly Bob, that's what they call me, Bob, why exactly won't the Iranians make the

concession? Because after all, aren't they facing all of this pressure? And here, here's the fundamental thing that people need to hear, which is if Iran makes a concession, say, gives up its nuclear material or gives up the power over the Strait of Hormuz, that makes Iran more vulnerable. You see, the problem here is that the United States and Israel, if they get more concessions, they can pocket those concessions, and that weakens Iran. Those are actual power tool, power assets for Iran, and it makes Iran more vulnerable. It's more likely that Iran will be attacked by Israel and the United States directly if it doesn't have a nuclear deterrent.

It just is. It's also more likely that it will be attacked in one way or another for whatever reason. if it gives up world power. And we have history here. The Ukrainians gave up their nuclear weapons. Gaddafi gave up his movement toward nuclear weapons. And look at what to happen to those states. Right. Okay. This is not a good history. You can also look at the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, you can say, well, they gave up world power, global power. They're a basket case right now. Putin is barely keeping 2% of the, it used to be the Soviet have 15% of the world's economy. Now they have 2%.

And what is Putin doing? He's fighting back to get it back. So you look at the history of all this. And that history is you may, and by the way, the United States promise in all those three cases, you're going to have an enormously beautiful future, just like Donald Trump. I mean, literally, those other presidents right out of Donald Trump page of, it's going to be beautiful. And it's not because they're vulnerable.

So this is really the problem. We're asking Iran to take sucker deals that other states have taken in the past, in their lifetime, and it just is not working out because what's happening is when the Soviet Union basically gave up power, we rode NATO right up to its doorstep. You see? That is what I mean by vulnerability. So if Iran gives this stuff up, this is not making Iran safe. This means Iran has a really, really even worse future over the next five or ten years. And we're hearing the Israeli right already talking about Turkey. No surprise there, but. Oh, there you go. This is another and Turkey doesn't have nuclear weapons. Yeah. Okay. So I'm just pointing.

right now that we are teaching the world. You know, yeah, it's nice to be, you know, send Donald Trump, you know, some presence, but better get a bomb. Yeah, that's right. And Professor, I wanted to ask, actually, we're sifting through this enormous amount of propaganda. What do you think actually is the sticking point at the end of the day for both the Trump administration and the Iranians, just looking ahead? Because as we look at what seems to have fizzled last weekend, what could that

tell us about if there are more Islamabad tech. Yeah, that's a great question. And I would say again, the three-minute clip by J.D. Vance when he came out is really important here for everybody to watch. It's not just another one of the clips here because what J.D. Vance did is he zeroed in directly on the nuclear enrichment, that Iran is going to become a nuclear weapons state. And I've been saying here in the substack, in the live briefings on the substack, this is actually the tap root, not just of this crisis, but the whole military antagonistic relationship with Iran going back to 2002 and 2003. We had a politically antagonistic relationship from 79 to 2002. But once Iran started to enrich uranium, this really took it to a new level.

And what you see is all this talk that all this confusion about the goals. Yeah, absolutely, Donald Trump's all over the place and what he posts. But there is a core through line here. And that core through line is Iran is enriching uranium. And we are teaching it, by the way, in these 25 years that their only chance of real survival is to get that, is to translate it into a weapon. And what you're seeing is J.D. Vance is right on that. He's explaining that. And that is what the Trump administration really is going to have to concede. They're going to have to make a choice. They're going to have to make a choice. If they want to get Iran to allow ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz here, then that is going to come at the expense of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons in about a year, maybe a year and a half. And they can talk out of both sides of their mouth all they want to. But the bottom line is this is what is becoming more and more in Iran's rational security interests. And if we had a hope of this not happening, it was the Obama deal.

And everything since Trump ripped that up has been making everything worse. Professor, last question for you on my end here is it's possible that we get no deal. And Trump just declares some sort of unilateral walk away and a permanent blockade. what do you think would happen as a result of that? Iran would attack the Babel Mandeb straight. They would escalate. Maybe they wouldn't and they would just suffer economic pain. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, that will just be that path. So there's path four, which is we let Iran become the fourth center of world power. You're seeing Trump doesn't want to do that. But that, there's only two choices. Either you do path for, stage four, or you do stage three. There's no going back to Feb 27. So stage three,

is where you're moving along the path of escalation. And the real consequences here of, you say that, you know, we're talking about that's permanent blockade, is going to be that, first of all, within the region, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, they're all going to see their GDPs decline by 20, 30 percent or more here in the next coming months. It's all going to go over a clip for them.

But then also, you're going to see that for the world, economy, you're going to see that this pattern here. And basically, what happens is up till day 45 of a oil blockade of some kind, you have prices go up. Then from 45 to day 60, you start to get actual shortages. And then from day 60 to 90, that's when you get economic contraction. And then you get the prices keep going up. The shortages get worse. And the contraction start to happen. And that gets baked in. And what we're going to see here, if you take that blockade as like a permanent blockade, is, yes, you will stop Iran from becoming that world center of power, at least without them fighting for it, but at the price here of taking the world's economy over the cliffs.

Right. And that is not going to make the world happy with the United States. And probably losing more American soldiers. almost surely here because the idea that Iran will not, Iran was willing to attack the Gulf states, they were also willing to kill 20 or 30,000 of their own people. So the idea that, and they also have already bombed American bases. So what those vessels are are essentially floating American bases. So if Iran was willing to bomb American bases in the region, I really think the idea they're going be scared to bomb the ships here? I don't think so. I think they're going to be probably playing

some tactical games here. They're going to be thinking through what's their best way to go forward. And they probably would really like China to go through and force the blockade to confront China because all that does is put China even more deeply in their camp. So if you're wondering why they're not already firing back and forth. It's because there really are, you know, there's a long game here and Iran has played it pretty well so far. We're not playing it very well. And as we go forward here, getting China more deeply on Iran's side, you know, it's already got Pakistan working with it, and I've got 60 to 100 nuclear weapons. You bring in China, that's 600, and now, of course, you've got Putin. So you're really building this coalition here for Iran.

We're helping Iran build it. Yeah. Well, Professor, as always, you're so enlightening. Escalation trap on Substack, link down in the description. And we will see you later, sir. Thank you very much for joining us. Absolutely. Thanks again. Great, great, great session.

Great discussion. Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. Thank you, Emily. It's been great. It's had fun. Got to keep the arm down in the show tomorrow. We've crystal.

Crystalbacks tomorrow. We'll see you guys that. See, everyone. media and women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark.

And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeart Radio or wherever you. you listen to your podcasts. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.

And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care.

So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lori Siegel, and I'm mostly human, I go beyond the headlines with the people building our future. This week, an interview with one of the most influential figures in Silicon Valley, Open AI's CEO Sam Altman. I think society is going to decide that creators of AI products bear a tremendous amount of responsibility to products we put out in the world. From power to parenthood. Kids, teenagers, I think they will need a lot of guardrails around AI.

This is such a powerful and such a new thing. From addiction to acceleration. The world we live in is a competitive world. And I don't think that's going to stop. Even if you did a lot of redistribution, you know, we have a deep desire to. excel and be competitive and gain status and be useful to others. And it's a multiplayer game. What does the man who has extraordinary influence over our lives have to say about the weight of that responsibility?

Find out a mostly human. My highest order bit is to not destroy the world with AI. Listen to Mostly Human on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters, into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this.

He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that, trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Lori Siegel, and this is mostly human, a tech podcast through a human lens.

This week, an interview with OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman. I think society is going to decide that creators of AI products bear a tremendous amount of responsibility to the products we put out in the world. An in-depth conversation with a man who's shaping our future. My highest order bit is to not destroy the world with AI. Listen to mostly human on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, it's Nora Jones, and my podcast playing along is back with more of my favorite musicians. Check out my newest episode with Josh Grobin. You related to the Phantom.

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