In the 1998 poker movie Rounders, Matt Damon plays Mike McDermott, a gifted card player who turns a climactic rematch with Teddy KGB after recognizing his opponent’s tell. Teddy has a ritual with Oreo cookies that gives away information about the strength of his hand. Once Mike sees the pattern, he knows something Teddy does not want him to know.
Iran may have found President Donald Trump’s Oreo.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Trump had been laying the groundwork to declare victory if Iran fully reopened the Strait of Hormuz, even privately floating that he might walk away without a nuclear deal. Tehran’s response was to raise its price. Iran demanded billions of dollars in U.S. payments, removal of American troops from the region, an end to the U.S. naval blockade, and other concessions.
That is exactly what one would expect if Iran believes it has learned how badly Trump wants the game to end.
Last month, I argued in these pages that Iran was treating the confrontation over Hormuz as a repeated game: probe Washington, observe the response, adjust, and probe again. Every threat, pause, strike, concession, and deadline teaches the other side something. Tehran has not been trying to discover whether the United States is militarily stronger. That was never in doubt. It has been trying to discover how much pain Washington will tolerate before looking for an exit.
Bargaining theory is one branch of game theory: It asks what happens when players with different costs, alternatives, and deadlines negotiate over a settlement. Military strength and bargaining leverage are not always the same. Sometimes the player who can wait longer has the better hand.
The Washington Examiner reported in June that a veteran of Trump’s presidential campaigns described the problem with unusual clarity: “Iran knows [Trump is] on the clock, and he knows that they know,” referring to the political pressure to end the war before the midterm elections.
That clock has not disappeared. Iran does not have a November election. Tehran does not have to defeat the U.S. It has to convince Washington that another month of disrupted shipping, economic pressure, and inconclusive fighting costs Trump more than another month of pressure costs Iran.
Once Tehran believes that, American urgency becomes Iranian leverage.
The trap then feeds on itself. The more Trump signals that reopening Hormuz would allow him to declare victory, the more valuable reopening Hormuz becomes to Tehran. The more clearly Washington advertises its need for an off-ramp, the more Iran can charge for providing one.
But reopening Hormuz alone cannot be victory. Neither can a ceasefire that leaves Iran free to rebuild the nuclear-weapons capability the war was supposed to eliminate.
The administration once understood that. As the Washington Examiner reported in June, the White House’s own framework for a permanent agreement paired the dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program with reopening the Strait of Hormuz and said implementation would be based on physical milestones, action, and verification.
That remains the right standard.
A peace agreement worthy of the war’s stated objectives must secure at least two nonnegotiable outcomes. Iran cannot be permitted to reconstitute a nuclear-weapons capability, and that prohibition must be backed by independent international inspections, accounting for nuclear material and facilities, and verification sufficient to detect rebuilding. Commercial navigation through the Strait of Hormuz must also be free and unconditional. Iran cannot turn an international waterway into a tollbooth, bargaining chip, or permanent instrument of coercion.
Those are not concessions Washington should purchase from Tehran. They are conditions that must exist before Trump can credibly say the war achieved its essential purposes.
Then comes the harder part: enforcement.
Trump should state plainly that if Iran rebuilds a prohibited nuclear-weapons capability, blocks the inspections required to verify compliance, or again interferes with free navigation through Hormuz, the war will resume in full.
And after saying it, he cannot back away again.
Trump himself said last week that if Iran backs out again, “they’re going to get hit really hard,” adding, “They can’t have a nuclear weapon.” The problem is whether Tehran believes that a warning will still be operative when violating an agreement becomes inconvenient to punish.
In a repeated game, backing away from an announced consequence does more than lose one round. It teaches the opponent where the real boundary lies. A threat that is issued, tested, softened, and replaced with another threat is not deterrence.
It is information.
The answer is not to reject diplomacy. Trump should negotiate, and he should end the war if he can secure the objectives for which it was fought. But ending the war cannot itself become the objective.
He wants a deal. Iran needs to believe he does not need one more than it does.
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In Rounders, Teddy KGB’s tell became dangerous only after Mike understood what it meant. Iran now thinks it understands Trump’s.
Unless Washington changes that calculation, Tehran has every reason to keep doing what it is doing: wait, watch, and raise the price.
Dr. Arie Blitz is a physician and independent writer in Weslaco, Texas. He writes on foreign policy, Israel, medical ethics, and biotechnology regulation.