Trump’s 5D Chess on Iran: He Is Finishing the Job, But the Endgame Is Still Ahead
By Ida Turan ایده توران
In recent months almost every move Trump made regarding Iran triggered waves of noise and criticism. Especially after the ceasefire and the complications around the latest MoU, many of those who believe the only real solution is regime change found themselves frustrated and losing trust.
Trump’s moves often seemed arbitrary, random, and very confusing. A lot of people were saying he has no plan, and they were angry at those who insisted he was playing a sophisticated game. But the truth is, he is indeed playing a complex, multi-dimensional game.
The Iran issue is extraordinarily complicated, with layers that are deeply intertwined and difficult to see all at once. Trump’s response is not a simple, compartmentalized plan, and that is probably why it can feel confusing, especially if you do not have visibility into all these layers or if you are looking at the situation from only one perspective.
In this article I want to separate these layers as clearly as possible so you can see the different dimensions of the chessboard. Perhaps after that some of the confusion will lessen, or at least you will be able to place more trust in the direction Trump is taking.
Let me take a step back for a second. Let’s look together at how chess actually works, because I think this is where a lot of the confusion comes from. You do not sit down on the first move and already know exactly how the whole game is going to unfold. The path changes depending on what your opponent does. You adjust. You respond. You use different pieces for different purposes. And almost never do you deliver checkmate right at the beginning. This is a game that takes time.
The Islamic Republic is not a normal player. It is not just another dictatorship that follows ordinary rules. This is a dangerous, deeply ideological regime that has never played in good faith. And it does not operate alone. It has a wide and complicated network of proxies and lifelines that keep it alive.
Many people expect the whole thing to end with one decisive blow. When that does not happen, they feel disappointed. And when the regime or its proxies push back and make their own moves, many see it as a sign that Trump does not know what he is doing or that he is weak. But that is not the case.
Trump understands the pieces the regime has on the board. He expects their reactions. The skill lies in gradually removing or neutralizing those pieces. The tools he uses are not limited to military force. Negotiation is one of them. Economic sanctions are another. International isolation matters as well. All of it has to be seen as part of one larger picture. You cannot look at a single move in isolation and immediately conclude that the strategy is failing.
Now let’s look at the chessboard’s different dimensions.
The 1979 revolution was never the noble popular uprising so many have romanticized. It was a brutal power grab by a small, ruthless, mafia-like group. From the very beginning this regime specialized in hostage-taking and creating chaos. Its core reason for existence has always been the destruction of the West, and the United States in particular. This is not a side priority. It is the regime’s reason for being.
For decades the regime poured the nation’s wealth into nuclear and missile programs, regional proxies, ideological export, and propaganda infrastructure. It prepared deliberately for exactly this kind of confrontation. The regime tied its own survival to the survival of 90 million Iranians. It embedded itself like a cancer deep into society, the economy, and daily governance. Iranians became the ultimate hostages.
Iranians have risen up many times over the past twenty years, only to face brutal suppression each time. One of those moments came in January 2020. President Trump tweeted in Persian that he was watching the courage of Iranians. The regime kept executing protesters and opponents with cruelty. It ignored international condemnation and calls from global bodies.
In September 2020 the regime held a sham trial with confessions extracted under torture and prepared to execute a young wrestler who had joined the protests. President Trump personally tweeted a direct appeal to Iran’s leaders asking them to spare the young man’s life. The regime carried out the execution anyway.
Beyond holding Iranians hostage, the regime spent decades using the threat of closing and destabilizing the Strait of Hormuz as leverage against the global economy. After the JCPOA and the lifting of sanctions, it added another chokepoint to its list of hostages: Bab el-Mandeb. The regime incited and armed a Shia rebel group in Yemen, the Houthis. With its expanding missile programs and turning the entire country into a militarized base, it repeatedly threatened to set the whole region on fire if anyone moved against it.
This was the regime Trump inherited. No other leader in the world had shown the willingness to confront it directly.
After the Midnight Hammer operation last year and the destruction of the immediate nuclear threat, Trump made clear that the regime’s capability had been obliterated. He appeared ready to step back. But when popular protests grew, he told Iranians to keep protesting because help was on the way and American forces were locked and loaded. Immediately afterward the regime carried out a horrific massacre, killing more than 54,000 people in just two nights.
A few days later the United States resumed nuclear negotiations and American military assets began moving into the CENTCOM region. Trump avoided direct comments about the bloodshed when asked. He simply noted that the regime was about to execute 800 detainees and urged them to stop. In my view that large-scale massacre was a suicidal move by the regime. It reminded me of October 7. The pattern was similar: blind killing followed by hostage-taking. Those 800 Iranian prisoners became the regime’s hostages.
The negotiations appeared to be progressing, and that frustrated many people who kept saying this was not the help Trump had promised. But it later became clear that the apparent progress in the talks was part of a deception operation. The goal was likely to prevent the regime from repeating suicidal actions such as mass killings or a preemptive closure of the Strait, while buying time to prepare military logistics. It worked. On the day of the strikes, Khamenei was not hiding in the bunkers built under urban centers. He was in his own office in the compound with his commanders, reviewing proposals.
The war stopped when the regime was on the brink of total collapse but while it still maintained centralized command. Trump chose to stop there because going further risked a complete fracture into chaos where local forces and militias would act on their own. In that scenario massacres would have become almost impossible to prevent from the air. At that point the regime’s other hostage cards had been confronted and became manageable. But there was still no control over the most vulnerable hostages of all, the Iranians themselves. Trump has repeatedly pointed out that Iranians cannot rise up without weapons. This shows he is completely aware of the situation and it has never been something outside his central focus.
In this light, negotiations, carrot-and-stick tactics, and carefully calibrated pressure are not signs of weakness. They reflect a deep understanding of the situation, responsible risk management, and the recognition that pushing a suicidal hostage-taker into total desperation could lead to unthinkable tragedy for the very people Trump has repeatedly shown he wants to help.
Many people seem to have forgotten the tough battle Trump fought to return to the White House. He faces determined and ruthless enemies who seize any opportunity to weaken him and undermine his position.
In the US the bitter memory of the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan still weighs heavily on a large portion of the public. People easily lose sight of the original goal. There has not been another terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11. Those efforts were not perfect and suffered from serious mismanagement afterward, but they achieved at least part of their intended purpose. Unfortunately national security has become heavily politicized in US, and both parties use it as a weapon whenever it suits them. Trump’s opponents, however, focus almost exclusively on the war weariness and public exhaustion. They spread lies and one-sided stories that portray this conflict as Trump’s unnecessary and self-imposed war. All of it is done in an effort to damage his popularity. This has become the Democrats’ main strategy.
At the same time the Islamic regime has spent decades preparing for moments like this. They know propaganda very well. It is an extension of the massive propaganda campaigns that helped them overthrow the Shah, with roots in Soviet methods. Years ago they began systematic infiltration into mainstream media and later into alternative outlets (like podcasts). They identified corruptible people who could be influenced and engineered narratives with professional skill.
The regime studied America’s weak points and societal divisions very well. It works by deepening those existing cracks to create further division. One of the most dangerous narratives spread inside Trump’s own base. This is “Israel’s war.” Iran was never close to a bomb. The whole thing has nothing to do with the US. The strong anti-Israel and anti-Jewish feelings that grew after October 7 were themselves the result of propaganda that had already reached full harvest. Suddenly those who had made a great deal of noise over weak, illogical, and highly unreliable statistics and evidence from Gaza, while speaking constantly about humanity, became blind and deaf to the clear and undeniable evidence of the horrific massacre of Iranians by the regime. They attacked Trump with every kind of lie. They also turned the rise in oil prices into a major economic disaster to add more psychological pressure.
For anyone who has followed the regime’s propaganda methods, this wave did not feel organic at all. We saw how known regime-linked figures, including plants like Trita Parsi, moved through right-leaning spaces, from Tucker Carlson to Thomas Massie and others. Some even appeared to be advising JD Vance. That showed the depth of the infiltration.
This intensely anti-Trump atmosphere over the war could have quickly spun out of control. It threatened the midterm elections and risked turning the next two years into a period of impeachment battles and political paralysis. The seriousness of the situation showed clearly when proposals to limit Trump’s war powers advanced in both the House and the Senate, even with a Republican majority.
In these circumstances, holding the MOU and giving Vance a visible role was clearly one of the tools used to manage and quiet this domestic noise. It showed that every diplomatic effort had been made and had been rejected. Many of the MOU terms were deliberately generous so that no excuse would be left. At the same time Trump helped calm oil prices and the markets. Vance stepped in to help settle that noisy part of the base.
Overall, the ceasefire and the subsequent negotiations served as a tactical pause on the chessboard. They created breathing room, helped manage internal and external pressure, and were executed with clear purpose. They were not random moves born out of panic, but deliberate steps within the larger strategy.
The violent takeover of power in 1979 and the birth of the Islamic Republic would not have been possible without the will and support of Western countries, particularly the Democratic administration in America along with France and Britain. Their goal was to remove a strong, nationalist, independent government that was a close ally of the United States from one of the most vital geopolitical locations in the world so they could restore their own influence and control. Britain launched a massive propaganda and disinformation campaign against the Shah, portraying him as “America’s puppet” , false narratives that still circulate in leftist circles.
They did not stop at destroying the Shah’s image inside and outside Iran. They also presented Khomeini as a “freedom fighter.” The BBC Persian service effectively became a loudspeaker for rebellion and unrest inside Iran. France gave Khomeini safe haven, and he conducted thousands of interviews with foreign outlets to spread his propaganda. Behind the scenes the Carter administration was in contact with Khomeini and played a significant role in convincing the Iranian army to remain neutral during the uprising. Later Republicans like Nixon sharply criticized Carter’s role in bringing down America’s main ally in the Middle East, but by then it was too late. The revolutionaries had taken American embassy staff hostage in their first major move.
Europe’s relationship with the regime has always been two-faced. On the surface it appears critical, but underneath it functions as the largest controlled opposition to the regime. It never opposes the regime seriously enough to actually threaten its survival. In critical moments Europe always opens a diplomatic umbrella over it. This is the kind of diplomacy Europe never offered the Shah. It also shows no real support for the genuine opposition today, including Reza Pahlavi.
Over the decades the regime deeply expanded its money-laundering networks and black operations inside Europe and faced almost no meaningful resistance beyond empty words. There is no doubt that the regime holds compromising material on many European actors. That is why Britain, even after the regime fired missiles at its bases, hesitated for so long to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization. Europe simply does not have the will or the power to confront the monster it helped create.
For Trump, exposing this corrupt but powerful international network aimed at undermining America cannot happen overnight. It must be done gradually by steadily highlighting Europe’s weak and hypocritical responses to the regime’s threats, for example, its failure to provide serious help in keeping the Strait of Hormuz open despite its own direct interests being at stake.
After Europe comes the turn of the Sunni Gulf emirates, the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. These were some of the biggest opportunists in the region after the fall of the Shah. With the removal of their strongest rival, the powerful nationalist Iran, they extracted from shared resources without hindrance, developed tourism and trade, and became major hubs for Asia-Europe connections by bypassing unstable Iran.
Despite the serious headaches the Shia regime has caused them through exported revolution and incitement of local Shia populations, these Gulf states always preferred Iran to remain weak and preoccupied so it would continue fighting their war with Israel for them. They knew that America and Israel would ultimately neutralize the regime’s most serious threats anyway. So they played a double game: appearing aligned with the West on the surface while actually helping to sustain the regime.
For years the UAE served as the largest hub for evading American sanctions. It facilitated the sale of Iranian oil to China and engaged in money laundering that effectively funded the suppression of the Iranian people, regional terrorism, and war against Israel. The UAE needed to be directly attacked by the regime before it finally stopped playing this game. The same issue continues in a more serious form with Saudi Arabia and especially Qatar.
Even if the current regime collapses, these opportunist actors will likely continue sabotaging any new Iranian government because they do not want Iran to become strong and aligned with US again. Right now their extensive propaganda networks, from Al Jazeera to certain voices in American right-wing circles, are working at full force against Prince Reza Pahlavi. They know that a modern, nationalist Iran under such leadership would quickly regain its position as a regional power and sideline them.
US, by contrast, would welcome an Iran strong enough to guarantee regional security so there is no need for permanent American presence and management.
In addition, initiatives such as the Abraham Accords and the Cyrus Accords pursued by Jared Kushner offer incentives to the Arab states of the region. Instead of continuing to benefit from perpetual war and instability, they are encouraged to move toward economic prosperity and cooperation. Even so, this path is not easy. It requires time, long-term strategic patience, and careful moves on the chessboard.
China is the largest buyer of sanctioned Iranian oil at a very low price. This cheap oil helps its economy and simultaneously creates geopolitical leverage against the US. China is interested in keeping Iran as part of the Belt and Road and as a base for its influence in the Middle East.
Trump in the interview he gave to the New York Times on his birthday made an important point: Xi Jinping was a complete gentleman. He could have broken the naval blockade but he did not.
This shows that separating China and Russia from the regime requires precise bargaining, smart pressure, and major deals. One small mistake can create a broad conflict, exactly what the Iranian regime desires.
And now Russia. The former Soviet Union was the biggest actor of unrest in Iran for more than a century. It supported the Communist Party inside Iran, pushed opponents of the Shah toward terrorist acts and sabotage, and created very strong and effective propaganda against the Shah that was highly influential in eroding public trust. The Soviet motivation was to remove British and American hegemony and control over Iran and establish its own power and influence. It can be said that among all the foreign governments pulling strings behind the revolution, the Soviet Union was the winner.
For decades Iran became a playing field and remained under Russian control, and it still is today. Iran is a useful proxy for Russia against the West and NATO. Coordination in Syria, the sale of Shahed drones to Russia for the Ukraine war, and using Iran as leverage against America and Europe are Moscow’s main interests. Both powers (China and Russia) do not want the regime to collapse completely because the alternative could be a strong, West-aligned Iran that shifts the balance in America’s favor.
Russia and China still possess very powerful tools inside Iran and can provide the regime with facilities, information, and assistance. Neutralizing them and cutting off their interests will not be an easy or overnight task. It also requires precise and strategic moves on a larger playing field (Ukraine and Taiwan).
In the decades leading up to 1979, Islamist revival movements, particularly Sunni Salafism initiated by Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood, merged with leftist anti-American ideology across the Middle East. This fusion created a radical, highly ideological, and efficient force for terror and sabotage. Khomeini applied this model to Twelver Shia, and the result was Velayat-e Faqih, a destructive and terrifying metastasis.
In the Velayat-e Faqih system, Khomeini presented himself as the direct representative of the infallible Hidden Imam. This made him infallible and beyond error or criticism. It created absolute power with an irrefutable argument. Any decision he made became a divine command. War with America was a divine duty. War with Israel was a divine duty. Physical elimination of any opponent was a divine obligation.
This system closed all free flow of information. It built a massive propaganda machine in universities, schools, and media. It poured money to loyalists, gave huge privileges to those who submitted, and punished even the smallest opposition with severity. On the surface it created the appearance of a completely revolutionary and unified system. In reality deep and widespread corruption ruled underneath.
During the revolution Western powers convinced the nationalist army to remain neutral. Immediately after victory Khomeini executed all the nationalists in the army and established a parallel military organization called the IRGC to protect against any coup. The IRGC quickly evolved from a military force into a vast economic mafia that sustainably funded internal and external terrorism directly from oil revenue.
In the last three decades of Khamenei’s life, the second leader who held absolute power for 37 years, he became extremely paranoid about the IRGC’s power. Especially after the major popular uprising in 2009 in support of the reformist faction, he began expanding the IRGC even further. He turned it into a full state-within-a-state to better protect his own dictatorial control. Those reformists were never truly opposed to the regime. They simply wanted a share of power. Khamenei’s terror of losing control drove him to strengthen the IRGC more than ever. So he never allowed power and money to concentrate in one single coherent cartel inside the IRGC. He distributed it among several parallel cartels and managed them himself by creating competition and balance between them.
Alongside this, Khamenei trained a highly loyal popular army known as the Basij. He drew it from poor, marginalized communities, often low-education or with mental health issues. This orc-like force was loyal only to him personally and served as his main tool to manage and restrain the rival power centers inside the IRGC.
After Khamenei’s removal, competition for the top seat intensified among the IRGC cartels. The wild orc army still exists. That is why some tried to install Mojtaba Khamenei as successor, even if he was most likely already killed, in order to keep that loyalist force under control.
The current situation is not yet fully clear, but the deep fractures inside the regime are obvious. Contrary to what many outside Iran think, this system is not a unified, selfless machine. It is a corrupt system full of infiltrators and compromised individuals. Many officials have accumulated enormous assets inside and outside the country and no longer want to die for the cause of Palestine.
A clear example is Larijani, Khamenei’s right-hand man and first person, who clearly betrayed him. Larijani, who outwardly said Death to America, had a daughter who lived in America for decades. He was eliminated some time after the war began.
Now it is Ghalibaf’s turn. With the claim of protecting Mojtaba’s security, he has kept him hidden and speaks on his behalf that Mojtaba is open to negotiations, while at the same time delivering big revolutionary talk to keep Khamenei’s orcs under control. In a recent interview Abbas Araghchi openly spoke of a security breach inside the regime that led to Khamenei’s death, a breach that, by his own admission, has not yet been resolved.
This system is extremely unstable. It is full of cracks and openings and people like Ghalibaf who have become cornered and have many pressure levers on them. Driven by greed to inherit power, they are trying to steer the regime through this dangerous situation. Many of them go to the negotiation table, talk big, and then submit in practice. This causes their own supporters to peel away as they realize the collapse is inevitable and it is time to abandon the sinking ship. With strong will and smart, long-term play, these individuals can be guided to hollow the regime out from within. In this way, when the final blow hits the body of the regime, the fallout and collapse will cost far less for Iranians and the future of the country.
This too requires strategic patience and a long game.
Contrary to what many think, the domino of weakening the Axis of Resistance and the eventual fall of the regime did not begin on October 7. The main turning point was the assassination of Qasem Soleimani in January 2020. Soleimani headed a large cartel that connected Shia communities in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon under the banner of the Axis of Resistance. He also fed Hamas and strengthened the Houthis on the critical Bab el-Mandeb waterway, one of the world’s most vital sea lanes.
Everything started after Khomeini’s success in Iran and the seizure of the monarchy’s wealth. The regime immediately began inciting Shia across the region. Shia historically saw themselves as a suppressed minority under the caliphs and Sunnis and were constantly in a state of revolt. Incitement of Iraqi Shia led Saddam to attack the newly revolutionary Iran. Khomeini deliberately prolonged the eight-year war and called it a blessing. The external crisis allowed him to consolidate power, root the revolution deeply, and brutally suppress internal opposition under the pretext of an external enemy.
Export of revolution succeeded in Lebanon, where the weak central government after years of civil war created fertile ground. Hezbollah was equipped on Israel’s border. After Saddam’s fall, Iraqi Shia took power with full Iranian backing and Iran’s influence deepened. Until Hamas’s rise, the Palestinian cause was a secular pan-Arab issue. Iran could only make itself relevant through its anti-imperialist stance. But after Hamas took Gaza in 2006 and the cause became fully Islamized, the regime gained a new Islamic entry point to stay relevant.
After the Arab Spring and the civil war in Syria, where the Sunni majority fought the Shia minority under Assad, the regime found an excellent excuse for greater expansion and direct military presence. As it became more relevant in the Palestinian cause, it intensified the nuclear program. This led to heavy sanctions until 2015 and the JCPOA. During the JCPOA, through cunning and trickery while preserving the nuclear infrastructure, and with Obama’s help, sanctions were lifted and billions of dollars flowed into the regime's system. Almost all of it went to the Axis of Resistance cartel. This was the peak period of the regime’s power and sabotage in the region.
But Trump exited the JCPOA. Iraq helped bypass sanctions by selling Iranian oil under its own name and money laundering in Dubai. The Abraham Accords were expanding. Finally the assassination of Soleimani caused the Axis of Resistance to begin its decline. The October 7 attack was a suicidal move to create chaos again and regain relevance. The regime and Hamas aimed to prevent the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
After October 7 Israel began delivering serious blows to this cartel. Sunni al-Jolani forces, with American support, overthrew Assad and severed the geographic connectivity of the Axis of Resistance. The twelve-day war delivered another layer of weakening to Iran. After Epic Fury and Economic Fury new movements are visible in the region. The US is working to empower the governments of Iraq and Lebanon so they can confront corruption and Iranian terrorist proxies inside their own countries. This work is difficult, time-consuming, and cannot be done overnight.
A very important and rarely mentioned point is the presence of proxy mercenaries, including foreign forces, in suppressing Iranians on January 9-10 and during the war. It seems the US is determined to manage and neutralize this network before the final blow to the regime’s empty shell so that these forces cannot help with internal repression and the cost for Iranians becomes lower.
This is a big part of the complex chess game progressing simultaneously. Dismantling a network this advanced, deep, and corrupt is not a simple task at all. It requires time and strategic patience.
Trump’s approach, smart economic pressure, strengthening regional alliances through normalization with Arab states, diplomatic isolation, support for internal protests, combined operations, and avoiding the regime’s traps for a big war, is exactly what a realistic strategy needs against such an enemy. Critics may feel disappointed in the short term, but history has shown that both blind engagement in the Obama era and reckless, ill-planned wars have been disastrous.
Strategic patience, careful coordination, and multi-layered moves are the only logical way to weaken this regime without horrific costs for the American and Iranian people. Iranians, unlike the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, have shown strong unity, clear will, and an undeniable choice. On January 9-10 they answered Prince Reza Pahlavi’s call and came to the streets. They demonstrated their desire for regime change and the return of Prince Reza Pahlavi. As Prince Reza Pahlavi has repeatedly said, Iranians do not need a savior. They need an equalizer and support so they can take their destiny into their own hands. Weakening the regime, combined with likely covert operations by the CIA and Mossad in coordination with dissident forces inside, can bring this popular uprising to the point of regime change. But patience is required and we must wait for the right moment.
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