AMERICA HAS THE CARDS. IRAN HAS THE TRUMP.
President Donald Trump and his team, including Pete Hegseth
and Marco Rubio, like to use card metaphors.
"Iran doesn't have the cards." "They don't
hold a strong hand." "We have the cards."
Whether discussing war, sanctions, or negotiations, the
poker metaphor comes up repeatedly. It reflects the American strategic mindset.
Americans love poker, so they think in terms of hands, bluffs, and leverage.
But there is an irony here.
Iran is unlikely to be intimidated by poker talk of hands,
bluffs, and leverage. Their civilisation has been playing card games much
longer. Long before the idea of an America existed. Well before Christopher
Columbus.
Historians believe playing cards originated in China. They
invented paper. From there, they travelled west through Central Asia and
reached Persia. Sitting at the crossroads of East and West, Persia was likely
one of the major routes through which card games eventually reached Europe, and
later, North America. Long before poker became an American pastime, cards
passed through Persia.
Which brings us back to today.
One of Iran's most popular traditional card games is Hokm.
The word hokm means authority, command, decree or, in the
game of cards, TRUMP! In the game, it refers specifically to "the trump
suit" - the suit that beats cards that would otherwise be stronger. In
Hokm, a weak card in the trump suit can defeat a powerful card from another
suit.
The lesson is simple: having the trump matters more than
just having more cards. In modern politics, that is called leverage. In
military language, it is called asymmetric strategy.
American politicians say success belongs to whoever has the
cards. The Iranians play a game that teaches that having the cards is useful,
but having the hokm - the Trump - is what wins.
Each time President Trump says Iran doesn't have the cards,
many Iranians are probably smiling to themselves. They have been playing Hokm
for generations.
Because they know that America may have the cards.
But Iran has the Trump. 😊
Peace, Anas Zubedy
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