Primarily, Russia and many other countries, including the U.S. and China, have produced chess champions. Yet one important fact should not be forgotten: The homeland of chess is Iran. Iran is a state with a rich historical legacy and a tradition of statehood that dates back more than 2,500 years.
In recent years, international relations, the geopolitics of war and the competing interests of states have become increasingly tangled. From one perspective, a war between Iran and the U.S. may appear strategically advantageous for Washington. From another angle, however, one cannot help but wonder whether the U.S. is gradually beginning to resemble Israel in its aggressive approach to power and conflict.
Perhaps the most enduring law in the universe is the concept of legitimacy. When an action or policy is legitimate, it tends to endure and produce lasting results; nations benefit from that legitimacy. But when wars, initiatives or political orders lack legitimacy, the cost eventually returns to those who initiated them.
Increasingly, in the global geopolitical arena, the U.S. appears to be moving closer to Israel’s model of conduct. Israel, as a state, may not feel the need to seek legitimacy in the traditional sense. It may not consider itself bound by international law. It may attack whichever state it wishes, kill civilians or journalists when it chooses, and in doing so adopt a mafia-style state model.
Yet Israel faces little economic consequence for such actions. Its financial deficits are often offset by support from American taxpayers, meaning that even when Israel enters wars or conflicts, its economy rarely suffers lasting damage. Even when it does, the U.S. often compensates for the losses.
The U.S., however, has historically occupied a different role. As the world’s largest superpower, it has sought to act as a legitimate state. It has also claimed the responsibility of establishing and safeguarding an international order based on democracy and human rights.
Yet, although negotiations between the U.S. and Iran were reportedly progressing positively, Israel’s sudden attack on Iran created a moment of global astonishment. The positive course of the negotiations might have lulled the Iranian leadership into a degree of complacency. Amid a productive diplomacy, Iran suddenly found itself plunged into war after losing its top leaders in a direct assassination.
Since the beginning of the war, several dominant narratives have quickly unraveled.
First, the war was launched without a serious debate about its legitimacy. It was assumed that if Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei were killed, the Iranian public would pour into the streets and a counter-revolution would erupt within days. It did not happen.
Another assumption was that a few military strikes would devastate Iran and that the country would be unable to resist sustained air attacks. It was predicted that the Iranian system would collapse under pressure. That prediction also failed.
Instead, Iran introduced entirely new dynamics into the equation. Most notably, it effectively shattered the U.S.-centered security architecture that had dominated the Gulf for more than three decades. In doing so, Iran demonstrated that none of the Gulf states are truly secure under the American security umbrella.
Iran also began to assert influence over energy and commercial traffic in critical waterways such as the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, targeting oil tankers and disrupting maritime activity.
Meanwhile, the rhetoric coming from the White House shifted repeatedly. Statements by U.S. President Donald Trump evolved from “If we hadn’t struck Iran, Iran would have struck us” – a claim few around the world found convincing.
Trump also declared that he would effectively determine who should become Iran’s next religious leader. However, this requires him to sit in Iran’s Assembly of Experts as an ayatollah himself, something that was clearly impossible.
Perhaps the most striking statement Trump made since the beginning of the conflict was: “The war is over.” That declaration briefly appeared strategic, leading many observers to assume that quiet negotiations were underway behind the scenes. But that impression quickly faded. Soon afterward, the rhetoric shifted again: the war might last longer, it might not end in a few days. Trump even claimed that the Iranians were “begging” him for negotiations, though he had not yet responded.
What now seems clear is that the war, shaped largely by Israeli intelligence assessments, has not unfolded as expected. In this geopolitical chess match, Iran has introduced a range of unexpected moves.
With a missile arsenal built up over half a century and a demonstrated capacity for precise strikes, Iran appears capable of prolonging the conflict. It is like a chess opening designed to stretch the game over time.
Domestically as well, Iran may be emerging as the only country in the conflict where public support appears to be rising rather than weakening.
Meanwhile, if the war goes on, it will bring significant benefits to Russia. At the very least, the global spotlight has shifted away from Ukraine. The world’s political “projectors” have turned toward the Middle East. Rising hydrocarbon prices also favor Russia, and Moscow is likely to provide Iran with whatever support it can to prolong the conflict.
For China, however, the situation is more complicated. Developments in both Venezuela and Iran are gradually placing Beijing in a difficult position. China would prefer stability – both because rising energy costs hurt its economy and because regional conflicts threaten key logistics routes, including between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Perhaps one of the most critical pressure points on this geopolitical chessboard lies inside the U.S. itself: rising gasoline prices. Fuel prices have already increased by nearly 30%. If that trend continues, public dissatisfaction within the U.S. will certainly grow.
Meanwhile, Iran continues to disrupt calculations on the battlefield, launching highly precise missile strikes that have reached targets in Tel Aviv.
Wars without clearly defined political objectives rarely produce successful outcomes. It increasingly appears that the U.S. did not fully calculate the long-term consequences of this war. Washington now faces two options. One is to extract itself through a reasonable peace settlement. The other is far riskier: to push deeper into Iran, potentially repeating a scenario reminiscent of the Vietnam War – entering a conflict from which it may find it extremely difficult to withdraw.
In this conflict, the great empire of the U.S. seems to be gradually resembling Israel. Once a country enters a dead end without legitimacy, turning back becomes extremely difficult. Under such conditions, the possibility of the U.S. re-establishing a legitimate political foundation for the conflict appears increasingly limited.
