Tehran Always Calculates Outcomes

Iran, the US, Ukraine, Russia, the EU, Sudan, and South Sudan.

Sheikh Shams Tabrizi plays chess with a young Christian man, unknown artist, c. 1502-4, from the Majalis al-Ushshaq manuscript, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

Hello,

Here are the five things you need to know today:

• IRAN. Trump may discover the costs of brinkmanship.

• UNITED STATES. A civil war is diverted into a clash within MAGA

• UKRAINE. RUSSIA. Washington gives Kyiv an invidious choice.

• EUROPE. Nationalist parties are vulnerable to Trump-by-association.

• SUDAN. SOUTH SUDAN. Arab fault lines exacerbate African wars.

Correction: yesterday’s headline on Korea and report on Myanmar were missing from our email edition. A corrected version is available here.

Geopolitical Dispatch is a daily strategic briefing for business leaders and investors, based on the US Presidential Daily Brief. Covering five top global developments at 5 am Eastern Time, Geopolitical Dispatch gives you visibility of events in context.

IRAN. 3D chicken

Trump may discover the costs of brinkmanship.

Saudi Arabia said it would not allow its airspace to be used in an attack on Iran after Donald Trump warned of an armada "bigger than Venezuela". The USS Abraham Lincoln arrived in the Middle East as the US began aerial readiness drills.

INTELLIGENCE. Trump claims Iran wants to talk, but if he pushes with strikes, he may find himself sucked into a real conflagration, narrowly avoided in June 2025. Unlike then, Iran won’t be taken by surprise. And having survived and crushed a major rebellion, parts of the regime may in fact welcome a foreign distraction. Alleged briefings Trump has received about Iran being at its weakest since 1979 are likely correct, but this may just make it more dangerous.

FOR BUSINESS. Trump also needs a distraction. The perception he chickened out on Minnesota and Greenland has hurt his credibility. But if Trump wants to turn TACO into FAFO, he’ll be playing against a more desperate opponent with less to lose and everything to gain from a rally-round-the-flag effect. Amid a split between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as uncertainty on Gaza, Iran’s neighbours are reluctant to join. Threats to end support for Iraq don’t help.

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UNITED STATES. Thin ice

A civil war is diverted into a clash within MAGA.

Border czar Tom Homan met Minnesota’s governor Tuesday in an attempted reset after ICE agents killed an ICU nurse. Trump said it wasn’t a “pullback” and restated support for Kristi Noem. Border commander Gregory Bovino was demoted.

INTELLIGENCE. Trump’s reset may have averted him using the Insurrection Act,