NEWNow you can listen to Fox News articles!
War is not checkers. It is chess, a game that began in India and was refined and brought to Persia, where “shah” meant king and “shah mat” meant that the king was defenseless. Language is important because strategy, whether in chess or war, is not just about putting your opponent in check. It’s about knowing how to finish the game.
President Donald Trump has the strongest pieces and Tehran knows it. That is why Iran is not trying to match the United States’ steps. He is trying to expand the board before Washington decides how to close the game.
Tehran’s counterattack
The pattern is already familiar to us. Trump attacks Iranian military targets. Iran puts pressure on commercial shipping. Trump tightens the maritime tie. Iran threatens new energy routes. Every American move is responded to not by matching American firepower, but by shifting pressure elsewhere: at sea, in the oil markets, in the Gulf capitals, and within the political debate in Washington.
US Central Command has confirmed a new wave of attacks against Iranian missile and coastal defense sites, part of an effort to reimpose a naval blockade of Iranian ports and degrade Tehran’s ability to threaten Hormuz shipping. Iran responded with strikes against U.S.-linked targets in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, and with cruise missile attacks that killed and wounded sailors aboard tankers in the strait. Tehran is trying to make every American attack produce a broader problem.
MIKE POMPEO: PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S PRESSURE CAMPAIGN ON IRAN WILL LEAD TO AN AMBITIOUS NON-NUCLEAR REGIME
President Donald Trump has put Iran in check, but he needs to finish the game. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
This is not simple retaliation. It is a countermeasure, and Iran has used this approach before.
The lesson of the tanker war
During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), Tehran helped turn the Persian Gulf into a battlefield in what became known as the Tank War. The US Navy launched Operation Earnest Will to escort re-flagged Kuwaiti tankers through the Gulf. In April 1988, the frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian mine while on that mission. Four days later, the Navy responded with Operation Praying Mantis, sinking or damaging a significant portion of Iran’s operational navy in a single day.
Iran did not defeat the US Navy. He learned something else: Mines, tankers, shipping lanes, and anxiety over oil can force a much stronger power to defend much more than a single waterway. That habit hasn’t changed.
TRUMP WILL NOT RULE OUT THE TAKING OF KHARG ISLAND: WHAT A US ASSAULT COULD LOOK LIKE
A second choke point
The Strait of Hormuz remains the central square on the board today. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that oil flow through Hormuz averaged about 20 million barrels per day in 2024, about one-fifth of global oil consumption.
But Hormuz may no longer be the entire council. Reuters reports that Iran is signaling that it could use its Houthi allies in Yemen to threaten Bab el-Mandeb’s entrance to the Red Sea, putting a second vital energy artery at risk. Closing Bab el-Mandeb would force tankers to loop around southern Africa, adding time and cost to global energy shipments.
A single chokepoint crisis is dangerous. A two-bottleneck crisis becomes a test of America’s staying power.
The toll error
Washington also gave Tehran an argument it did not deserve. Trump proposed a 20% fee on shipping through Hormuz, but abandoned the idea a day later, saying no one should be able to charge that toll. The legal problem was obvious. The U.N. International Maritime Organization said there is no legal basis for mandatory tolls in an international strait under transit passage rules.
The United States cannot credibly tell Iran that it has no right to toll an international waterway while briefly weighing its own toll. The proposal, recently withdrawn, was an unforced error.
Iran did not defeat the US Navy. He learned something else: Mines, tankers, shipping lanes, and anxiety over oil can force a much stronger power to defend much more than a single waterway. That habit hasn’t changed.
The bet of resistance
The greatest danger is that repetition becomes a substitute for strategy. Axios reports that Trump called a Situation Room meeting to weigh a broader offensive than the current attacks near Hormuz, and Trump has said publicly that attacks on Iranian power plants and bridges could follow if Tehran does not return to the table.
TRUMP REVIVES HIS DECADES-LONG WARNING ON IRAN AS US INCREASES MILITARY PRESSURE: ‘NOTICELY CONSISTENT’
Force works when it reduces an enemy’s options. It fails when it multiplies the obligations of the United States. Tehran is betting that every attack, threat and expanded blockade by the United States will look like progress while adding another place for Washington to defend.
What Trump should do now
Trump should reject that bet. Three disciplines would help you achieve this.
First of all, stop making maritime policy public. A major maritime policy should not appear in a social media post before its legal basis, allied support and enforcement mechanisms are established.
Second, mention the war the United States is actually fighting. Is this limited retaliation a maritime security operation, coercive nuclear diplomacy, or an effort to dismantle Iran’s coercive infrastructure? Each response requires different goals, different limits, and a different explanation to the American people.
Third, use force to limit the war, not expand it on Tehran’s terms. American power should reduce Iran’s options, not multiply Washington’s burdens.
The Tank War offers a warning. What began as a limited escort mission became a test of national will, alliance management and escalation discipline. Washington cannot afford to be timid. You also can’t afford to be careless.
CLICK HERE TO REVIEW MORE FROM FOX NEWS
Iran cannot defeat the United States directly and does not have to. Your strategy is to expand the board, increase the cost, and survive long enough to consider resistance a kind of victory.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Trump has the strongest pieces. He has put Iran in check more than once this year. But check is not checkmate. A regime under pressure can still escape, counterattack, and drag the fight into a more costly configuration if its opponent confuses movement with strategy.
Trump has the pieces to prevail. What it needs now is discipline to prevent Tehran from choosing the next place.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM ROBERT MAGINNIS