Donald Trump doesn’t play chess, a game requiring patience and method.
Trying to guess what goes through the U.S. president’s mind when making decisions is probably a fool’s errand. After all, many a top former aide ― notably onetime national security adviser John Bolton ― say Trump doesn’t really have ideas, only instincts and reactions. His decision-making is ad-hoc, chaotic, episodic.
That all stands in marked contrast to Benjamin Netanyahu.
Obviously the Israeli prime minister grabs unforeseen opportunities when they present themselves, but he’s also a grandmaster of political chess. He’s churning strategies through his mind the whole time, before the game commences and once it is underway. “He always has a plan, and more than one,” says Nadav Shtrauchler, a former aide.
Netanyahu is described as methodical and relentless, armed with back-up schemes and a willingness to switch tactics to secure his overarching strategic aim when obstacles arise, trying to ensure he can adapt and is anticipating twists and turns while keeping his eye firmly on the prize. That was all ingrained in him during his service in the Sayeret Matkal special forces, Shtrauchler told POLITICO. “He always said to me, ‘listen, you have to come with your best plans and you will decide at the last minute which one you go with.’”
Shtrauchler was the Israeli leader’s campaign manager for the 2019 parliamentary elections — one of Netanyahu’s most spectacular turnarounds in a long political career full of remarkable and unexpected comebacks that’s earned him the nickname Bibi the Magician.
Maybe more appropriate would be to dub him Bibi the Chess Hustler, a skilled player whose deceptive tactics gain him an edge over less seasoned and tenacious players. Is that what he’s managed to pull off with Trump, exploiting and anticipating the impulsive and improvised dealmaker’s reactions to maneuver him to where he wants him when it comes to Iran?
Nobel Peace Prize
Trump came into his second term pledging to stop the wars currently raging around the world — he’d end the war in Ukraine in a day, strike a nuclear deal with Iran. He’d be the world’s peacemaker, a Nobel Peace Prize candidate.
His loyal America First advisers, too, have been openly and emphatically skeptical of any open-ended adventurism that may risk entangling Washington — which, for example, bombing Iran could well entail. The skeptics include Vice President JD Vance, whose suspicion of foreign entanglements predates even his MAGA conversion, having its origins in his time as a U.S. Marine in Iraq, where he became disillusioned with America’s ill-fated “forever wars” in the region.
“Our interest very much is in not going to war with Iran,” he said in October 2024. “It would be a huge distraction of resources. It would be massively expensive to our country.” Having less exposure in the Middle East has been a theme that others in Trump’s national security team have highlighted since November as well — they want the focus on China and, of course, on the enemies within.
But here Trump is dispatching more warships and hardware to the region and partnered with an Israeli leader who for three decades has ruminated about how to collapse the theocratic regime in Tehran, a diehard adversary of Israel, earning him another sobriquet, Mr. Iran. On Monday, Trump was amplifying Israel’s dire warnings and telling the 10 million residents of Tehran to evacuate the Iranian capital, no easy feat given Israeli strikes, congested highways and the shortage of fuel at gas stations.
So far, Trump has refrained from ordering U.S. forces to join Israel on the offensive in what’s unfolding quickly not as a limited action aimed at degrading Iran’s nuclear program, but as a war of attrition. How long before Trump is tempted with Netanyahu likely arguing behind the scenes that only U.S. bunker-busting bombs can impact Iran’s underground facilities ― and why not seize the opportunity?
And that would come with the argument that the regime can indeed be collapsed. Trump’s rhetoric and tone has also shifted as Iran has been rocked on its heels by the Israelis. Initially, he seemed to speak more in sorrow, suggesting Iran had brought this upon itself. In the past 48 hours he’s sounded more aggressive, more like Israel’s formal partner.
Humbling and wrecking
Shtrauchler plays down the idea that Netanyahu has been manipulating Trump, pushing and coaxing him along a track, but he acknowledges the Israeli leader has bided his time and has been ready to make compromises along the way. This includes acceding to Trump’s demand earlier this year, at least for a while, for a Gaza ceasefire.
But as he made temporary adjustments, Netanyahu has been firmly fixed on his main Mr. Iran goal. For Bibi, Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon have been stepping stones for the big confrontation with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Iran, says Shtrauchler. Humbling and wrecking Iran’s proxies so they can do little to distract from the main objective.
But as ever Netanyahu will have at least two plans in mind. “The first to change the regime, not necessarily directly by war, but to start something that in the end will lead to its demise. Second, the subordinate one to stop Iran’s nuclear program and to open the way to Saudi Arabia signing on to the Abraham Accords,” Shtrauchler says. He has been patient and tenacious, getting the ducks lined up, not just with Trump but in terms of his war Cabinet and military commanders as well.
“Since the October 7, he’s been going step by step,” Shtrauchler says. “One of the biggest debates was with his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who wanted to attack Lebanon in the first week. And he said, ‘No, we’re not ready. We need to do it step by step.’ He started with Gaza. Then Lebanon. He had luck with Syria with Bashar al-Assad’s fall.”
That Netanyahu has become more confident and brazen thanks to the breathtaking success of the decapitation strategy of the Israeli military and intelligence services, which has exploded the incompetence of the Iranian regime, is becoming clear. He started out publicly talking in terms of taking out Iran’s nuclear program. But over the weekend and this week he has been weighing in more about regime change.
And on Monday, Netanyahu said killing Iran’s supreme leader Khamenei, would “end the conflict.” The military tactics have also been shifting. The targets and methods broadening to ministries, state television and car bombs, for example.
It is indeed a remarkable Bibi turnaround. He and his closest aides knew a reelected Trump wouldn’t be easy, that he wouldn’t hand them a blank check. Trump harbored residual distrust of Netanyahu and he was unlikely to endorse everything he might want.
Quick and effusive lauding has been part and parcel of a months-long effort to get back into the president’s good graces, after the Israeli leader had enraged him in 2020. Back then, Trump had complained Netanyahu was the first foreign leader to congratulate Democrat Joe Biden while the outgoing president was still disputing the election results. “Bibi could have stayed quiet,” an irritated Trump later groused.
When Trump toured last month the Gulf, where the Arab leaders pressed him to secure another Gaza ceasefire and to press on with the negotiations with Iran, Netanyahu kept his counsel and offered no complaint that a trip to Israel wasn’t included. When Trump lifted sanctions on Syria, a move Netanyahu opposed, he kept quiet too, all the while hoping to tempt Trump into endorsing his ambition of humbling Tehran’s clerical leaders.
Now some Trump loyalists are shaping a narrative of how Netanyahu and Trump together outfoxed Iran and lulled the mullahs into thinking the dealmaker would restrain Netanyahu . More likely Trump, too, was outfoxed by the grandmaster.
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