The United States' withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018 and the initiation of the "maximum pressure" campaign by the Trump administration marked a critical turning point in the geopolitical confrontation with Iran. This strategy aimed to weaken Iran’s deterrence and change its regional behavior through a framework of direct and proxy threats. In response, Iran sought to maintain the deterrence balance and prevent full-scale war by relying on asymmetric warfare. Consequently, the two countries entered a state of “deterrence at the boiling point”—a precarious situation where the constant threat of war was tempered by deterrence-based calculations.
 With the Biden administration's arrival, signs of diplomacy emerged, but pressure on Iran continued, leading to interactions that can be characterized as "gray diplomacy."
Recent developments, such as the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, the attack on the Iranian consulate, and Tehran’s military response, have propelled the region into a phase of “active instability.” Targeted assassinations and localized clashes have further heightened tensions. Now, with the fall of Damascus and the possible return of Donald Trump in 2025, the region has entered a new stage defined by a “power vacuum” and strategic uncertainty. This situation raises crucial questions about potential future scenarios concerning Iran—ranging from the continuation of pressure to multilayered containment.
 Given the ongoing deterrence at a geopolitical boiling point and the prospect of Donald Trump's return to power in the United States, what plausible scenarios might arise in Washington's approach toward Iran? Should we expect a continuation of coercive geopolitics, a refinement of diplomacy within a gray zone environment, or a shift toward multilayered containment through a blend of symmetric and asymmetric threats? This research is exploratory and does not present any hypotheses or preliminary conjectures. It adopts a futuristic approach by employing the Global Business Network (GBN) technique to develop scenarios related to the research topic and address the research questions.
 The study employs the GBN technique to model the future landscape through the interplay of seven geopolitical drivers and fourteen strategic uncertainties. The combination of these elements resulted in 128 potential scenarios. Among them, 102 scenarios were deemed internally inconsistent. For example, a scenario in which former President Trump simultaneously pursues a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities while successful negotiations are underway is logically incoherent and implausible.
 In contrast, 26 scenarios exhibited internal consistency. However, in line with Trump's publicly stated policy regarding Iran's nuclear program—often framed as a binary choice between “deal or bombardment”—two scenarios emerged as analytically significant: (1) the Zero-Sum Game: Return to the Gamble of Deterrence and (2) the Multi-Level Game: Deception Behind the Smile. In the Zero-Sum Game scenario, negotiations between Iran and the United States ultimately fail, resulting in Trump choosing to launch a military strike on Iran's nuclear infrastructure. Conversely, the Multi-Level Game scenario envisions a successful diplomatic outcome, where both countries de-escalate tensions and avoid direct military confrontation.
Upon analyzing both scenarios, the Multi-Level Game was identified as the Nash equilibrium of the strategic interaction. Despite the ongoing availability of military options, the escalating costs for both primary actors make this approach increasingly irrational, thereby favoring a non-zero-sum outcome based on compromise.
 However, Israel, acting as a third-party disruptor, could potentially disturb this balance by providing misleading intelligence to U.S. decision-makers. Such interference may lead the United States toward a riskier path, reviving the Zero-Sum Game dynamics and undermining the equilibrium.