Iran Won Because America Is Stuck in the ‘Smart Bomb Trap’

2026-06-19

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Recorded in May. Join angryplanetpod.com to hear episodes early and commercial free.America’s war against Iran has gone on for more than two months and the United States has achieved none of its political objectives. American power has diminished, its munitions stockpile is low, and Iran now controls the Strait of Hormuz.Tehran has all the cards.To hear Robert Pape tell it, this was all predictable. Pape is a political scientist who teaches at the University of Chicago and specializes in the use of v...

Recorded in May. Join angryplanetpod.com to hear episodes early and commercial free.

America’s war against Iran has gone on for more than two months and the United States has achieved none of its political objectives. American power has diminished, its munitions stockpile is low, and Iran now controls the Strait of Hormuz.

Tehran has all the cards.

To hear Robert Pape tell it, this was all predictable. Pape is a political scientist who teaches at the University of Chicago and specializes in the use of violence to achieve political goals. He’s the author of Bombing to Win and a scholar of air power failures. On this episode of Angry Planet, Pape walks us through the uses of air power, why it never achieves victory on its own, and why the Pentagon keeps promising it will.

How you become an air power expert
Losing Vietnam after such perfect precision
Man as meme
“You don’t learn this by real estate deals.”
There has not been a single case in history where air power alone has succeeded.
“Our power is declining as a result of this.”
The persistent myth of winning through air power
Dumb bombs to precision weapons
“It’s a dismal record of failure.”
NATO in Kosovo
What are America’s definable political goals?
Iran’s political goals
Iran says seized tanker in Gulf of Oman, as US ‘disables’ two ships
Punishment, denial, and decapitation
The fragmenting GCC
Pape as Casandra
Breaking Trump in the Strait of Hormuz
“This will end up being America’s worst defeat since Vietnam.”
A grim prediction