The Myth of Trump’s 4D Chess in Iran

The “4D chess” gives too much credit to people who have repeatedly shown us their limits.

When I finished my recent conversations with Tarik Cyril Amar, Ehsan Safarnejad and Carl Zha about the war of aggression on Iran, I found myself thinking more seriously about one of the most seductive theories circulating online right now: the idea that Donald Trump is secretly playing “4D chess” in the Persian Gulf. According to this theory, the chaos around Iran, Hormuz, energy flows, and global supply chains is part of a hidden master plan to demolish the old petrodollar system, weaken China’s access to energy, restructure global trade routes, and reposition the United States as the indispensable supplier in a new economic architecture.

And I want to say honestly that I understand why people are attracted to this theory. When events become this large, this dangerous, and this globally disruptive, the human mind looks for design. It feels almost psychologically easier to believe that someone powerful is controlling the explosion than to accept the more frightening possibility that the explosion is escaping the control of those who started it. Empires also train us to overestimate them. We are taught, directly and indirectly, that Washington has plans within plans, institutions behind institutions, and strategists who think hundred years ahead while the rest of us react emotionally to headlines. So when a war produces consequences across oil, shipping, fertilizers, Asian economies, Gulf monarchies, and China’s supply chains, many people assume the consequences were intended from the beginning.

But after listening to brilliant geopolitical analysts with different backgrounds, such as Tarik, Ehsan, and Carl, I think the theory becomes far less convincing, not because the United States lacks a grand strategy against Iran, China or Eurasia, and not because Washington does not weaponize energy, sanctions, trade corridors, and financial systems. It obviously does. The real issue is different. People are confusing strategic ambition with strategic competence. They are confusing long-term imperial objectives with tactical control. And perhaps most importantly, they are confusing byproducts with plans.

That distinction matters enormously.

Because yes, the United States has an interest in weakening China. Yes, it has an interest in disrupting Eurasian integration. Yes, it wants to control energy flows, shipping routes, financial systems, and the political behavior of the Gulf. But wanting those things is not the same as controlling the chain of events that follows a war. Having a grand strategy is not the same as being able to execute it coherently. And this is where the “4D chess” argument begins to collapse.

Tarik’s point was the first to strike me. The theory assumes a level of rational coherence that the American system no longer seems to possess. It assumes that behind the visible chaos, there is a hidden architecture of brilliance. But why should we assume that? Why should we assume that a state whose leadership, institutions, and public discourse show daily signs of decay is still secretly operating with perfect strategic discipline? Tarik asks: If this is controlled demolition, why does it look so much like the uncontrolled demolition of America’s own military decisiveness and global reputation? Why would Washington burn down parts of its own house merely to convince others that it has a plan?

This is where Trump himself becomes impossible to ignore. Some people say Trump does not matter because the deep state or the permanent bureaucracy runs everything anyway. I find that too simplistic. Of course, there are institutions. Of course, there are networks of power. Of course, no American president acts alone. But Trump is not a decorative figure. He has agency. He influences policy. He sets moods, incentives, fears, and directions inside the system. And if the central political figure in this war is impulsive, narcissistic, contradictory, and often incapable of disciplined reasoning, then how exactly are we supposed to believe that the most complex energy, financial, and military restructuring of the century is being executed flawlessly through him?

This is not a small problem for the theory. It is the problem.

Because the “4D chess” argument requires almost perfect coordination. It requires Washington to provoke a war with Iran, manipulate Hormuz, restructure global energy flows, weaken China, pressure Asian economies, benefit U.S. exporters, manage Israel, discipline the Gulf, preserve American credibility, and absorb global blowback—all while pretending to suffer humiliations that are supposedly part of the deception. At a certain point, the theory starts asking us to overlook it.

Ehsan added another layer that I think is crucial. He said: Not every byproduct is an objective. In other words, a policy can produce consequences that someone later tries to exploit, but that does not mean those consequences were the original plan. A war can disrupt energy markets. It can pressure China indirectly. It can create opportunities for American exporters. It can hurt rivals in unexpected ways. But none of that proves that the war was designed from the beginning to produce exactly those results.

This is especially important because Trump himself admitted something that goes directly against the myth of strategic mastery. He thought the war would be over quickly. He did not expect Iran to retaliate against the Gulf monarchies in the way it did. That admission reveals the central miscalculation. Washington believed it could hit Iran hard, contain the Iranian response, protect the Gulf clients, and impose escalation on its own terms. And once Iran refused that role, the war started looking like a crisis whose consequences had to be managed after the fact.

This is why Ehsan’s distinction between grand strategy and execution is important. The United States may indeed have a broader strategy against Iran, China, and Russia. It may seek to disrupt supply chains, weaken adversarial states, pressure energy routes, and create internal instability in countries that resist Western dominance. But you can have a grand strategy and still fail catastrophically at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. You can understand the map in theory and still misread the society you are attacking. You can desire regime collapse and still produce national consolidation. You can plan for deterrence and instead create escalation. You can intend to weaken China and end up damaging your allies and your own consumers.

This is why I say the empire still has objectives, but it lacks mastery.

And Carl Zha’s contribution made the China angle even more concrete. Because one of the central claims of the “4D chess” theory is that the war on Iran is really about choking China’s energy supply. On the surface, this sounds plausible. China imports a significant share of oil from the Persian Gulf region. Iran and Venezuela both sell heavily to China despite sanctions. The Strait of Hormuz is a global chokepoint. So the argument seems attractive: close or destabilize Hormuz, disrupt Gulf energy flows, and force China into a more vulnerable position.

But the material picture is much more complicated. Carl pointed out that China has built enormous oil reserves, larger than the combined reserves of the United States, Japan, and Europe. China has not behaved like a country facing imminent energy strangulation. Oil continues to reach China from Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and through indirect routes, including flows often rebranded through Malaysia. Iranian and Venezuelan oil matter, but they are not the whole of China’s energy picture. China is also far more energy self-sufficient than many people understand, and its push into solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, and industrial energy planning has given it buffers that American strategists often underestimate.

Even more important, Carl explained that the countries suffering most immediately from the Hormuz crisis are not necessarily China, but U.S.-aligned states in Asia: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and even India. These countries depend heavily on energy flows from the Persian Gulf, and many have far fewer options than China. This is a major weakness in the theory. If the goal was to hurt China, why are America’s own allies being placed under such pressure? If the operation was designed to demonstrate American mastery, why does it expose the vulnerability of the very security architecture Washington claims to protect?

And the blowback does not stop there. The United States itself is not as insulated as the propaganda suggests. It exports gas, yes, but it remains a net oil importer. Oil and gas are globally traded commodities, and price shocks travel. Fertilizers, helium, diesel, jet fuel, ammonia, urea, and other strategic commodities are also affected by disruption around the Gulf. Carl pointed out that American farmers are already feeling pressure from fertilizer costs, and that energy disruption feeds directly into food, manufacturing, transport, and the wider industrial system. So the fantasy that Washington can simply shut down a chokepoint, hurt China, and walk away untouched is exactly that: a fantasy.

This is where the comparison with Europe becomes useful. Yes, the United States succeeded in destroying Europe’s energy relationship with Russia and replacing part of it with more expensive American energy. That happened. But Asia is not Europe. The EU is politically obedient and strategically captured. Beijing is not going to respond to energy coercion by quietly lining up to buy American supplies on American terms while accepting its own humiliation. The whole theory projects the European experience onto a completely different civilizational, economic, and strategic environment.

And if China were really terrified of being choked, would it reopen exports of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel? Would it openly push back against American secondary sanctions? Carl’s point here was very important: China fights where it is strong. It does not need to sail into the Indian Ocean and fight the U.S. Navy symmetrically to prove resolve. Its strength is production, supply chains, rare earths, refining capacity, industrial depth, and the ability to impose economic costs on the American military-industrial complex itself. This is why the image of China as a passive victim waiting to be strangled by a clever Trump plan is deeply misleading.

Kevork Almassian@KevorkAlmassian

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So where does that leave us?

It leaves us with a more sober conclusion. The United States is not stupid in the sense of having no strategic interests. It knows that China is the central long-term challenge. It knows that Eurasian integration threatens American primacy. It knows that Iran is a key node in the wider architecture resisting Western domination. It knows that energy, ports, pipelines, corridors, sanctions, and financial systems are weapons. But knowing these things does not mean Washington can control every consequence of using them. And this is the difference between an empire at its height and an empire in decline.

At its height, an empire can sometimes make its violence look like order. In decline, it increasingly makes its disorder look like a strategy.

That is what I think we are watching.

The war on Iran has exposed not only the brutality of the U.S.-Israeli axis but also the intellectual exhaustion of those trying to explain every failure as a hidden genius. When America fails quickly, they say it is bait. When America suffers reputational damage, they say it is camouflage. When allies are hurt, they say it is acceptable collateral. When Trump contradicts himself, they say the real planners are elsewhere. When the theory does not match reality, they add another layer to the theory.

But there has to be a point where analysis stops protecting the myth of competence.

Maybe the simpler explanation is also the more serious one: Washington wanted to weaken Iran, miscalculated Iran’s resilience, underestimated the blowback, overestimated its own ability to control escalation, and is now trying to turn the consequences into leverage wherever it can. That does not make the empire harmless. Quite the opposite. A declining empire that still possesses enormous military, financial, and technological power, but lacks discipline and rational control may be more dangerous than a confident one. But danger is not the same as mastery. Violence is not the same as strategy. Chaos is not the same as chess.

And this is why I think the “4D chess” framing ultimately misleads more than it explains. It gives too much credit to people who have repeatedly shown us their limits. It turns imperial dysfunction into mystery. It transforms miscalculation into brilliance. It asks us to believe that every wound is self-inflicted on purpose, every humiliation is staged, and every failure is part of a design that only the initiated can understand.

But sometimes a failure is just a failure.

Sometimes a miscalculation is just a miscalculation.

And sometimes the empire is not playing chess at all.

It is knocking pieces off the board and calling the noise a strategy.

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—Kevork Almassian is a Syrian geopolitical analyst and the founder of Syriana Analysis.