Political science professor Robert Pape, an expert on national security and terrorism, explains why President Donald Trump is “losing control of the situation” in his war of choice against Iran.

Pape, the founder of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST) at the University of Chicago, told New York magazine’s Intelligencer that the one aspect missing from the president’s execution, along with Israel’s, of military action is the political dimension.

“The fundamental problem here is that bombing by a foreign power changes the politics of the situation,” he says. Despite the precision of today’s modern bombs, “that doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t help.”

“The problem is not that the bombs don’t go off. The problem is not that the bombs don’t hit the targets. The problem is not that the targets aren’t cratered or the leaders aren’t killed. The real problem is we’re a foreign power, and we’re using military force to pick a new government.”

On his Substack, Pape writes, “no regime in modern history has fallen solely because it was bombed from the air.”

READ MORE: ‘Borderline Criminal’: Ex-Trump Official Says DHS Least Ready Yet for Terror Attack

“Strategic bombing has destroyed armies and shattered cities, but it has not by itself toppled a functioning regime,” Pape notes. “Political collapse happens when ruling coalitions fracture under internal pressure, not when buildings burn.”

“Bombs can devastate states,” he adds. “They do not, by themselves, disintegrate regimes.”

Speaking to Intelligencer, Pape said, “We’ve seen regimes crack under military pressure, and it’s when they lose major ground wars. That’s what happened with Russia in World War I. They had these massive battlefield losses, their soldiers came back, and they were very angry at their regime, their czar.”

“But that was a bottom-up process,” he explained. “The Germans were not bombing Moscow to accelerate it — in fact, had they done that, they probably would’ve extended the czar’s reign. Not only was it not up to the control of the Germans, but look who came into power: the Leninist communists and later Joe Stalin, who then really strengthened Russia and the Soviet Union and crushed Germany. So they got regime change.”

Today, he says, the “waves of nationalism” are “being left out of this conversation” in Iran.

“The politics are being left on the side. We’re spending time talking about the hardware and the technology and the sensors, and we’re missing the discussion of the politics.”

He says that the military technology has “almost like a mesmerizing effect.”

“And you hear this in President Trump in the last three days, where he’s saying, ‘I have all these off-ramps, and I can do this, and I can do that.’ Well, notice he’s now doubling down in ways he wasn’t expecting to. He’s no longer taking ground forces off the table. He’s losing control of the situation.”

READ MORE: ‘Dereliction of Duty’: Trump Officials Slammed Over Failure to ‘Keep Americans Safe’

Image via Reuters

Miles Taylor, the prominent former Trump Department of Homeland Security chief of staff, is warning that his former agency has never been less prepared for a terror attack on U.S. soil.

“I oversaw counterterrorism at DHS for two years in the first Trump administration,” Taylor writes. “I’ve never seen DHS less prepared to defend the U.S. against a terrorist attack. And Trump took us to war five days ago — with a country that is hellbent on retaliating.”

Taylor says that “the Trump administration has left us vulnerable to an Iran-backed terrorist attack,” and he warns that “the way I’ve watched the White House and DHS fumble the preparation for war is beyond a dereliction of duty. It’s borderline criminal.”

On Substack, Taylor outlines five reasons — and “foolish mistakes” — he says have left America vulnerable to a terrorist attack “that could get Americans killed.”

“The administration appears to have done no ‘defensive’ prep for war,” he says. “And it’s spent a year shifting counterterrorism personnel to domestic immigration enforcement.”

READ MORE: House Epstein Investigators ‘Working With’ Trump: Comer

“Anyone who has partial cognition knows that a U.S. war with Iran — whether airstrikes, naval confrontations, or targeted assassinations of its leadership — carries an immediate and predictable consequence,” Taylor says. “You hit someone, they hit back. In this case, we should be expecting Iranian-directed or Iranian-inspired attacks on American soil.”

Serving up a “serious warning,” Taylor says: “Wars do not stay overseas. They come back to haunt you at home. And if you’re not ready, then you’re tempting fate to take the lives of your own people.”

He also says it appears DHS was not even consulted before Trump ordered U.S. Armed Forces to attack Iran.

“There is no public evidence of any meaningful interagency preparations. No indication that DHS, the FBI, or the intelligence community were brought in to war-game the domestic security consequences of military escalation,” he writes. “What’s worse, the people whose job it is to answer the question ‘what happens here at home if we do this?’ were apparently not in the room at all when the bombs started flying.”

Another reason America is not prepared, Taylor says, is that Trump has moved thousands of counterterrorism agents, experts, and officials to “immigration” enforcement — “and away from other missions, including foreign terror threats.”

For example, “Border Patrol Tactical Units (BORTAC) — the elite DHS counterterrorism teams — have been conspicuous on U.S. city streets going after citizens, rather than hunting down Iranian operatives.”

READ MORE: ‘Dereliction of Duty’: Trump Officials Slammed Over Failure to ‘Keep Americans Safe’

All the time these counterterrorism agents spend away from their core duties is time they cannot spend chasing down tips or “locating and removing potential assassins, bombers, and plotters here within our borders.”

Another reason the U.S. is unprepared for a terror attack is that the Trump administration claims the top terror threat to America is Antifa.

“DHS Secretary Noem and an FBI leader testified under oath in front of the House Homeland Security Committee that their biggest terrorist worry inside the U.S. Homeland was ‘Antifa.’ That’s right. Not Iranian IRGC operatives. Not ISIS or al Qaeda agents infiltrating the country. But left-leaning Americans they’ve deemed to be ‘Antifa,’ even though Trump’s lieutenants couldn’t even figure out how to describe the danger when they were pressed.”

Also, the Trump administration has been firing FBI agents who were specifically tasked with monitoring Iranian threats — reportedly because they also had been involved in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Trump’s alleged removal, retention, and refusal to return classified documents that were stored at Mar-a-Lago.

And the final reason the U.S. is unprepared for a terror attack: Trump took America to war before getting DHS funded.

“Perhaps most damning of all is that the president of the United States launched a war before making sure his Department of Homeland Security was back up and running.”

He says that “if Trump knew he was going to launch strikes against Iran, he should have made damn sure he found a way to cut a deal on Capitol Hill to get DHS funded.”

Taylor laments that “that clearly wasn’t a priority.”

READ MORE: Intel Expert Calls Out Trump Defense Secretary for ‘Criminal Incompetence’

Image via Reuters

After former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave depositions in the House Oversight Committee’s Epstein investigation, calls have been growing for President Donald Trump to also testify, but Chairman James Comer says that he’s already cooperating.

The New York Times reported that the Clintons were questioned for a total of roughly nine hours “about their relationships with the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019, and Ghislaine Maxwell, his longtime associate.”

Both Clintons “said repeatedly that they had no knowledge of any sex trafficking or sexual abuse by Mr. Epstein or Ms. Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking.”

CNN reported last week that the Clintons’ testimony could end up backfiring on President Trump. The news outlet asked, “isn’t there a double standard if Trump, who was mentioned in the files numerous times, is not also put under oath?”

READ MORE: ‘Dereliction of Duty’: Trump Officials Slammed Over Failure to ‘Keep Americans Safe’

“Some observers might wonder whether first lady Melania Trump might have similar insight” as Hillary Clinton’s “about the times her husband and Epstein moved in similar orbits before and after their marriage in 2005. While there would surely be a mighty constitutional fight over an attempt to compel testimony from a sitting president, the first lady has no formal constitutional role, and there appear to be no legal barriers to such a summons.”

Now, NewsNation reports that Chairman Comer says Trump is “turning over documents” and has answered “hundreds if not thousands” of questions regarding his committee’s probe into Jeffrey Epstein.

Comer did not appear to offer any insight into the methods by which Trump has been answering questions, nor how or what documents he has turned over.

“I’m very appreciative of the cooperation with the Trump administration,” Comer told NewsNation. “And President Trump’s answered hundreds, if not thousands, of questions about Epstein.”

Comer also said that the rich and powerful were not exempt from his committee’s investigation.

“It was always our plan to bring in rich and powerful people, anyone that had spent a lot of time with Epstein, anyone that was on the island or in the airplane just to try to learn about how Epstein was able to pull this off, any close associate,” he said.

READ MORE: Intel Expert Calls Out Trump Defense Secretary for ‘Criminal Incompetence’

He did not say that Trump would be brought in, but he was asked about “the knowledge that President Trump knows.”

Noting that “former presidents are now clearly on the table,” the NewsNation host asked, “so when he leaves office, will you ask the same of him?”

“We’re working with the president,” Comer said.

Appearing to sidestep the question, Comer replied that Democrats are “going to go after President Trump whether or not this Epstein investigation ever happened.”

NEWSNATION: Former presidents are now clearly on the table, so when Trump leaves office will you ask him to testify?

COMER: Democrats are going to go after President Trump

NEWSNATION: But will you ask him to testify?

COMER: We’re working with the president. He’s answered… pic.twitter.com/m5oK7UiNdC

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 4, 2026

READ MORE: FBI Agents Probing Iranian Threats Fired Over Mar-a-Lago Investigation Ties

Image via Reuters