□The Grandmaster’s Gambit: Trump, Iran and the Middle East□

“Ladies and Gentlemen… the curtain rises.”
Tonight’s stage is neither a battlefield nor a conference hall. There are no tanks rumbling across deserts, no fighter jets streaking through darkened skies, and no diplomats shaking hands beneath glittering chandeliers.
Instead, before us rests a simple chessboard.
Thirty-two white squares.
Thirty-two black squares.
Sixty-four silent witnesses waiting for the first move.
The Grandmasters have taken their seats.
The pieces stand motionless.
The spectators hold their breath.
Please… watch carefully.
Not every move that echoes “Check!” will ever become “Checkmate.”
I do not know what happened to me that morning. For the first time, I neither heard the familiar chiming of tiny brass bells nor sensed the signature fragrance that always announced the arrival of BaBa Tal, the Bell-man. When I finally looked up, there he stood quietly behind my chair, watching me with the gentle smile of a teacher who had arrived long before his student noticed.
I was playing chess…
…entirely by myself.
From both sides of the board.
White against black.
Move after move.
Trump answered Iran.
Iran answered Trump.
Every decision demanded another.
Every calculation invited a counter-calculation.
I had become so absorbed in protecting Kings, unleashing Queens, positioning Rooks, guiding Bishops, and tempting Knights into dangerous squares that I had forgotten the passage of time itself.
Even the coffee in my old mug had surrendered to the morning air and gone cold.

Outside the window rested my faithful mustard-coloured Foxy. Years ago, I had painted a black-and-white chessboard across its bonnet. Friends laughed, believing it was merely an eccentric decoration. They never understood that every journey, like every game of chess, begins with a single move—and every destination depends upon the wisdom of the next.

BaBa Tal slowly stepped beside the board. His weathered fingers hovered above the pieces, yet he touched none of them. After a long silence, he whispered,
“Bacha! Every decisive move is born in silence. Victory belongs not to the quickest hand, but to the calmest mind.”
His words lingered in the room long after the bells around his robe had fallen silent.
I lowered my eyes once more to the sixty-four squares.
Suddenly, they no longer looked like polished wood.
They looked remarkably like the Middle East.
BaBa Tal gently lifted the White King between his fingers, studied it for a moment, and returned it to its square.
“Bacha,” he said softly, “every game begins with one truth—the King must survive. Lose the King, and all victories become meaningless.”
The words carried me far beyond the chessboard.

In geopolitics, every nation protects its own King. It may be called sovereignty, national honour, territorial integrity, or regime survival, but the objective remains unchanged. Nations negotiate, threaten, build alliances, impose sanctions, and sometimes wage wars for one overriding purpose: to ensure that their King never falls.
The Queen stood beside the King, majestic and powerful.
On a chessboard, she commands the greatest freedom. Across today’s geopolitical board, she wears many faces—energy, oil, economic influence, the Strait of Hormuz, strategic waterways, and the technologies that shape tomorrow’s balance of power. Whoever commands the Queen possesses the widest range of choices. Whoever loses her begins to play with one hand tied behind the back.
BaBa Tal’s eyes wandered to the very heart of the board.
“The centre,” he murmured, “is where impatient players lose their games.”
Four modest squares.
Nothing more.
Yet every grandmaster understands that control of the centre determines the rhythm of the contest.

How strangely familiar that sounded.
The Strait of Hormuz is no larger on the map than those central squares appear upon a chessboard, yet the world’s commerce, energy markets, and political calculations seem to revolve around that narrow passage. Whoever threatens it can unsettle continents. Whoever secures it may steady the global economy.
I reached for a Rook.
Its movement was direct, uncompromising, and unmistakable.
“Power often travels in straight lines,” BaBa Tal observed. “Ships, armies, sanctions, tariffs, and treaties all announce themselves openly. Yet remember, Bacha… the loudest move is not always the wisest.”
Then came the Bishops.
They advanced diagonally, quietly crossing the board where others could not. Their strength lay not in noise but in angles, patience, and unseen opportunities.
The Knights waited nearby.
Curious creatures.
They ignored barriers, leaping where no other piece could go. They reminded me that history is often altered not only by armies but also by intelligence, covert operations, unexpected alliances, and those unpredictable moves that leave commentators searching for explanations after the fact.
Finally, my eyes settled upon the Pawns.
Eight humble figures.
The smallest pieces on the board.
The first to march.
Usually the first to fall.

BaBa Tal sighed.
“Bacha… never laugh when a Pawn falls. Many kingdoms have disappeared because someone underestimated the smallest piece on the board.”
His whisper pierced deeper than any political speech.

For on the real chessboard of our world, those Pawns have names.
They are mothers waiting for sons to return.
They are fathers rebuilding broken homes.
They are children who know the sound of sirens better than the sound of school bells.
They are ordinary citizens who never asked to become pieces in anyone else’s game.
As I looked again at the board, I no longer saw black and white squares.
I saw cities.
I saw borders.
I saw hopes.
And I silently wondered whether the Grandmasters remembered that every piece they moved carried a human heartbeat.
BaBa Tal remained silent.
He slowly folded his hands behind his back and looked not at the Kings, nor the Queens, but at the Pawns.
Then he asked quietly,
“Bacha… tell me, when the Grandmasters leave the table, who gathers the broken pieces?”
I had no answer.
Perhaps none of us do.

For centuries, history has celebrated those who won wars, expanded empires, and redrew maps. Yet history’s brightest medals have too often been pinned upon uniforms while the tears of ordinary people disappeared into anonymous dust.

The Holy Qur’an offers a higher standard than victory alone:
«”O you who believe! Stand firmly for Allah as witnesses in justice, and do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just; that is nearer to righteousness.”-(Qur’an 5:8)»

Justice—not vengeance.
Restraint—not rage.
Wisdom—not pride.
These are the moves that preserve both nations and humanity.

The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) also reminded mankind:
«”The strong man is not the one who overpowers others, but the one who controls himself when angry.”
— Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6114; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2609»

How desperately our age needs that wisdom.
Every missile launched in anger may win a headline.
Every threat may earn applause from loyal supporters.
Every declaration of “Check!” may excite television studios.
But no mother has ever celebrated the arrival of war.
No child has ever dreamed of growing up beneath the shadow of drones and smoke.
No ordinary citizen has ever prayed for another generation to inherit ruins instead of hope.
I looked once again at the chessboard before me.
The pieces had not changed.
Only my understanding had.
There comes a moment when every Grandmaster must ask a question that no chessboard can answer:
What is the true price of victory?
If every cry of “Check!” leaves behind another orphan, another grieving mother, another shattered home, then perhaps the game itself has already been lost.

To every leader seated before the geopolitical chessboard, I make one humble appeal:
Turn the board over before your hunger to shout “Checkmate!” turns our world into a living hell.
Leave ordinary men and women outside your contests for influence.
Let children inherit classrooms instead of bunkers.
Let mothers count their children’s dreams instead of their graves.

Power was never entrusted to leaders so they could perfect the art of sacrifice. It was entrusted to them to protect the weak, preserve peace, and defend the dignity of every human soul.

For the greatest creation of the Greatest Creator—Allah, God in Heaven—is not an empire, nor an arsenal, nor a throne.
It is the human being.
BaBa Tal gently folded the chessboard, looked toward the horizon, and whispered,
“Bacha… the greatest grandmaster is not the one who wins every game, but the one who knows when not to play.”

●●POETEARS●●
[Coined by T. Hejazi — Where poetry becomes tears, and tears become poetry.]
°°°
When kings cry “Check!” with pride upon the board,
The silent pawn still bears the heaviest sword;

No crown is worth a mother’s endless tears—
Peace is the greatest victory, my Lord.

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