Pape: War in Gulf Escalates, Not Cooling Off

0:00It's April 18th, from coast to coast. This is U.S. News Today, powered by AI. I'm Cory with the story. Military expert Robert Pate from the University of Chicago says that recent talk of a peace deal was just smoke and mirrors. He argues the whole conflict is zero sum, meaning no room for compromise on big issues like Iran's nuclear edge or control of the Strait of Hormuz. One side wins, the other loses big time. The short ceasefire last week and fell apart fast after the U.S. kept up naval pressure on Iran. Tehran hid back by tightening its grip on the Strait and ramping up military moves. Pate calls it a snap back to escalation, showing how locked in these tensions are. Both sides see giving ground as worse than fighting. For Iran, dropping nuclear ambitions could spark a revolt at home and leave them exposed. For the U.S., letting Iran keep that threshold power shifts the whole Middle East balance. Recent moves prove they're all in on escalation, not reacting, but choosing it.

1:03Pate spots a pattern of step of fights, quick pauses, then right back at it. Seize fires just by time, not peace, with the USS George H.W. Bush carrier and its 6,000 troops heading to the Gulf of Amman soon. Pate warns this war is only getting tighter, not cooling off.