Henry Nao once wrote a fascinating book article in Commentary magazine in which he argued that Barack Obama’s foreign policy resembled a jigsaw puzzle, while George W. Bush’s more traditional approach resembled a chessboard. Over the past few years, I’ve often wondered about President Donald Trump’s game.
As Operation Epic Fury appears to be winding down in Iran, it has become clear that Trump is playing foreign policy like one big geopolitical poker game, and that he has the winning hand on his hands.
What Nao meant by Obama’s jigsaw puzzle style is that, under his “lead from behind” approach, every nation on earth, friend and foe alike, holds a piece of a global puzzle, and if we put them all in the right place, the world’s problems will be solved.
FILE PHOTO: Cargo ships in the Gulf, near the Strait of Hormuz, seen from northern Ras al-Khaimah, near the border with Oman’s Musandam administration, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in the United Arab Emirates, March 11, 2026. (REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo/File Photo)
The problem with the puzzle approach is that countries like Russia and China, not to mention Iran, have very different ideas about what image the finished puzzle should show, and so the pieces never quite fit.
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In the chessboard method of foreign policy, as used by both Bush administrations, large nations control the territory on the board, either by owning it or threatening it from afar. In times of war there are sometimes checkmates, but generally the goal is to maintain balance.
It is this very global balance that Trump rejects and that has led him to eschew the chessboard in favor of the riskier game of poker. He sees the past forty years of global equilibrium as a time of widespread abuse against the United States.
Trump’s stated desire to acquire Greenland is a perfect example of his worldview. He knows, like everyone else, that when push comes to shove, it will be the American taxpayer who will finance the defense of the crucial Arctic island against Russia and China, so why should Denmark control the country?
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It is in Iran, during Operation Epic Freedom, where we see the president’s geopolitical poker style most clearly. His ultimatums were ‘antes’. His threat to destroy Iranian civilization forced their leaders to push their most precious asset, the Strait of Hormuz, to the center of the table.
Trump knows two things here. One, as he likes to say, he has the better cards. Two, and perhaps more importantly, he has virtually infinite commitment. He has not caved to a two-week ceasefire because he can end it at any time. Every day can be a bridge and power plant day.
Trump-crazed naysayers claim Iran won the war. But let’s look at what the United States has achieved here, or so to speak, the pots that Trump has won.
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Ayatollah Khamenei and his 150 or so closest friends in the regime are dead, Iran’s military is in ruins and its nuclear program, what’s left of it, has been further degraded.
Most importantly, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States have waged a joint fight against Iran over the past month. If I had told you this would happen as Trump came down the golden escalator, you would have laughed at me.
Some say this was a failure because Trump didn’t follow through. But a month ago he told the Iranian people: “We are going to take out your leaders and then the rest is up to you.” We did that, and whether or not the people there are able to rise up and throw out the government is, as always, their business.
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Trump doesn’t want eternal war, and we won’t get one. It remains to be seen, but it is very likely that a military dictatorship would still be preferable to a death cult theocracy.
President Donald Trump speaks from the Cross Hall of the White House on April 1, 2026 in Washington, DC. Trump used the primetime address to update the nation on the war in Iran. (Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)
Like any good poker player, Trump knows how to bluff on the world stage, and even if he folds one hand, it always gives him crucial information about his opponent, be it Iran or even NATO.
What Trump is really doing is resetting the global order: from one in which the United States finances its own declining influence to one in which we decide what we pay for.
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The president is willing to improve the global balance to achieve this goal because he believes that it is that balance that is holding America back.
Trump will not play the slow chess game of foreign policy where draws are the norm, nor will he pretend to play a puzzle with our committed enemies. Instead, Trump will continue to play the hand the voters dealt him, and he still has plenty of cards to throw down.
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