The Iran War Expert: I Simulated The Iran War for 20 Years. Here’s What Happens Next

You’ve been running war-game simulations on a conflict with Iran, and I think you might be the voice we most need right now. Before we dive in—thank you for listening and sticking with us—who are you, what have you spent decades studying, and what on earth is happening?

We’re in a familiar kind of crisis where bombs hit their marks but end up rewriting the politics, which is the heart of my work on escalation traps. Stage one looks like clean tactical wins; then the politics shift under your feet and start to drive the war.

Who have you advised, and how do your simulations relate to what we’re seeing now?

I helped build the Air Force curriculum for this kind of fight and have advised every White House since 2001, including Trump’s first term. For twenty years we’ve gamed Iran strikes: B2 aircraft can wreck the facilities, but the real problem is the enriched uranium—the stock can be hidden, moved, and later turned into bombs, which pushes leaders toward regime change when panic sets in.

What’s the one headline we’re missing while we hear, it’s all going great?

We’re inside a trap of our own making and losing control as Iran disperses material and escalates on its terms. They prepared to ride this out and hit back in ways that change the coalition’s politics.

They were at around sixty percent enrichment, we bombed, then we talked—why negotiate if the strikes ended the program?

Even sixty percent is worrisome if the engineering is competent, and we never had eyes on the stock after the strikes. Satellite cues showed likely pre-strike truck convoys moving canisters, so the material could already be elsewhere.

People assume if you remove the Supreme Leader, the war ends; is that the wrong picture?

Iran’s regime is a mesh, not a single brittle node, and we killed the one leader who had issued religious edicts against nuclear weapons. That cleared space for a tougher successor backed by the Revolutionary Guard, and it increased the incentive to lash back to prove credibility.

How is Iran escalating right now?

Stage one was missiles into Israel; stage two spread horizontally with precision drones hitting partners like Saudi Arabia and the UAE to scare off tourism, pressure leaders, and push the US presence out. That fractures the coalition and stirs public anger from below, which is dangerous for those governments.

What does a US ground deployment look like, and how likely is it?

Think an 82nd Airborne footprint seizing an airport-sized area and searching for weeks in blasted tunnels and buried rooms. I’d put the odds around even in the near term, because escalation ratchets with pauses that look like peace and then snap forward again.

The old nuclear deal had cameras and inspectors that froze the program; scrapping it sped enrichment to material for roughly sixteen bombs. Airpower gives near-perfect hits on buildings, but it’s strategic failure if the stock survives and disperses.

What about the Strait of Hormuz and Russia’s role in all this?

One drone-killed tanker can spook crews and jack up global fuel prices, which feeds inflation and domestic blowback. Meanwhile Russia is reportedly handing Iran targeting data, mirroring how we feed Ukraine, which further tilts the politics.

So what happens next—cut losses or double down?

Trump faces a brutal choice: pull back and take a short-term political hit, or press on and risk an LBJ-style quagmire that could define the midterms. He thrives in chaos, but the smart-bomb trap has a way of pulling you up the ladder one rung at a time.

Is our soft underbelly just democracy at work?

It’s wars of choice that drain legitimacy, unlike fights after direct attacks like Pearl Harbor. In this case Iran didn’t strike first, which leaves the politics on their side over time.

Was there another path, and how does Israel’s role change the calculus?

The day before bombing, a deal better for the US than the Obama-era terms was on the table, but we chose regime change as Israel moved to assassinate senior leaders, which made de-escalation harder to demand. We could pressure Israel, but that carries real political costs at home.

No fence-sitting—what’s your call on stage three?

I see roughly a seventy-five percent chance we send in limited ground forces unless a deal pulls the enriched stock out, because dispersed material can be turned into a simple Fat Man–style device without miniaturization. Iran’s incentive to sprint rises each week we keep killing and threatening them.

Did Trump understand the escalation trap before he hit go?

He was likely warned, but he likes to stir the pot and read the chaos, which worked in Venezuela when he stopped at stage one. In Iran, Israeli strikes against top figures helped shove the conflict into stage two.

You once said America’s unipolar run was ending—what are you seeing now?

Tariffs and constant crises are pushing partners away while China motors ahead in advanced industry and AI, and another Middle East quagmire would please Beijing. Putin, meanwhile, can trade intel restraints for leverage in Ukraine, and our stock of long-range precision munitions is being drawn down, which matters for Taiwan.

If Trump were listening, what would you tell him to do?

Take the deal, stop the air campaign, and get as much twenty and sixty percent uranium out of Iran as possible, even on tougher terms with the new leadership.

Isn’t that just delaying the inevitable?

Freezing the problem for twenty years beats chasing perfect security and tumbling into a forever war, because great powers often lose when they overreach. Time can change the board in ways force cannot.

Closing tradition—what’s a prediction most people don’t want to hear?

Our biggest danger isn’t abroad but at home: the normalization of political violence from riots to assassinations to militarized crackdowns. If we keep down that path, we become our own worst enemy.

Where can people read more?

My Substack on the escalation trap and my books are a good start, with more coming on political violence—and thank you.