Expert claims Iran 'strategy' has lured Trump into military trap using clever war tactic

Despite continued claims that the Iranian regime and military assets have been destroyed by US-Israeli strikes coming from the White House, drones and missiles continue to wreak havoc across the Middle East.

While President Trump's end goal in the war remains unclear, his plan for bringing the regime to its knees is about as clear as it gets, after dropping an estimated $5.6 billion in explosive ordinance on the country in just the first two days, per Washington Post.

But despite Trump claiming there's 'nothing left to target', Iran's cheap but deadly Shahed drones have continued to strike at US military installations and allied nations across the Gulf. Which an expert on global security matters says could show that we are walking right into a trap.

Proving the famous line that 'history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce,' the University of Chicago's Professor Robert Pape believes that Iran's tactics indicate that Trump is sleepwalking into the same trap that led to the death of around 2000 US soldiers in Vietnam.

The Communists' counterattack caused Americans to lose faith in the Vietnam War (Pictures from History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Professor Pape, who literally wrote the book on why you can't change a regime with air power alone, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War, warned in Foreign Affairs that 'America and Israel may have bitten off more than they can chew.'

This is in spite of the rather heavily weighted balance of casualties, with seven US service personnel dying in the last week and a half, while more than 1200 people have died in Iran as a result of continuous US-Israeli bombardments.

But despite the casualty figures being heavily one-sided, Pape says that increasing the geopolitical risk in the war is exactly what Iran wants.

The academic explained: "Iran’s strikes cannot be dismissed as acts of scattered retaliation, the flailing lashing out of a dying regime. Rather, they represent a strategy of horizontal escalation, a bid to transform the stakes of a conflict by widening its scope and extending its duration."

Pape also wrote: "Horizontal escalation occurs when a state widens the geographic and political scope of a conflict rather than intensifying it vertically in a single theatre,

"It is especially appealing as a strategy for the weaker parties in a military contest. Instead of trying to defeat a stronger adversary head-on, the weaker side multiplies arenas of risk - drawing additional states, economic sectors, and domestic publics into the remit of the conflict."

While the Tet Offensive failed militarily for the North Vietnamese, it shook the American public and led to the end of the war (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

This isn't some genius new strategy by the Iranian military, but a recognition of how America lost another large-scale conflict, despite winning on paper. That is, by repeating the infamous Vietnamese Tet Offensive.

By 1968, three years after America joined the war to stop the spread of Communism in Asia, the US had dropped more ordnance on Vietnam than during the entirety of World War Two.

During this air campaign, dubbed Operation Rolling Thunder, US airmen had essentially wiped out the North Vietnamese's military and industrial centers, with Washington believing that an escalation in the protracted conflict could bring it to an end.

Instead, during a national holiday a few months later, Communist forces carried out a coordinated attack simultaneously on more than 100 targets across Vietnam. This is thought to have led to tens of thousands of dead North Vietnamese, while roughly 2000 Americans were killed.

But the ultimate victory of the Tet Offensive took place back in the US, where the public's confidence in the administration to bring the war to an end was irrevocable shattered. Even though American forces had won every battle.

Scenes from 'Operation Rolling Thunder' are eerily familiar to those of 'Operation Epic Fury' (Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Professor Pape explained: "The lesson was not that bombing failed tactically. It was that Hanoi escalated horizontally, widening the conflict beyond rural battlefields into South Vietnam’s cities and political nerve centers, transforming a military contest into nationwide political upheaval, and reshaping domestic calculations in Washington.

"In Vietnam, the United States never lost a battle—but it still lost a war."

With threats to mine the globally important Strait of Hormuz and attacks on oil infrastructure across the Middle East, Pape pointed out that this was the same strategy being used by the Iranian military.

However, President Trump can avoid walking into the same trap as Lyndon B. Johnson, the professor said.

Pape added: "Whether this conflict is merely a contained episode or it becomes a prolonged strategic setback for the United States will depend not on the next volley of missiles but on whether Washington recognizes the enemy’s unfolding strategy—and responds with one of equal clarity."