Opinion

I've studied military strategy. Trump now faces Iran's oldest battlefield trick

Houthi allies could threaten Red Sea shipping, turning a one-chokepoint crisis into a two-chokepoint test

By Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, (ret.) Fox News

Published July 17, 2026 5:00am EDT

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War is not checkers. It is chess, a game that began in India and was refined and carried through Persia, where "shah" meant king and "shah mat" meant the king was helpless. The language matters because strategy, whether in chess or war, is not only about placing an opponent in check. It is about knowing how to finish the game.

President Donald Trump holds the stronger pieces, and Tehran knows it. That is why Iran is not trying to match America move for move. It is trying to widen the board before Washington decides how to close the game.

Tehran's counter-move

The pattern is now familiar. Trump strikes Iranian military targets. Iran pressures commercial shipping. Trump tightens the maritime noose. Iran threatens new energy routes. Each American move is answered not by matching American firepower, but by shifting the pressure somewhere else: at sea, in oil markets, across Gulf capitals and inside Washington's political debate.

U.S. Central Command has confirmed a fresh wave of strikes on Iranian coastal defense and missile sites, part of an effort to reimpose a naval blockade on Iranian ports and degrade Tehran's ability to threaten Hormuz shipping. Iran answered with strikes on U.S.-linked targets in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, and with cruise-missile strikes that killed and wounded mariners aboard tankers........

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