(The Economic Collapse Blog)—By the time we got to this stage, I always thought that most people would understand what was happening. But of course that isn’t true at all. Even though we are literally right on the brink of an apocalyptic war with Iran, most of the population doesn’t seem too concerned. But they should be. The Iranian regime has already shown that they are willing to gun down tens of thousands of their own people. When it comes to securing the survival of their regime, there is no limit to what Ayatollah Khamenei and his minions would be willing to do. That could potentially include firing ballistic missiles that have been armed with chemical and biological weapons at Israeli cities. That could also potentially include releasing a biological weapon on U.S. soil. Those that choose to underestimate the barbarity of the Iranian regime are making an enormous mistake.
Over the weekend, it was being reported that the U.S. military is getting ready for “sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack”…
The US military is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, two US officials told Reuters, in what could become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the countries.
The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the planning, raises the stakes for the diplomacy underway between the United States and Iran.
Anyone that thinks that a final showdown with Iran would be a nice, neat campaign that would be over in just a few weeks is not being realistic.
It certainly didn’t work out that way in Afghanistan or Iraq, did it?
The Iranians have spent the last six months feverishly preparing for the next war with the United States and Israel.
Weapons from Russia and China have been pouring in.
The Iranians are now in a far better position militarily than they were during the 12 Day War last year.
Of course U.S. preparations for the coming war also continue to ramp up.
Right now, there are at least 16 KC-135 aerial refueling tankers at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar…
Chinese commercial satellite imagery has confirmed a surge in U.S. Air Force deployments of KC-135 aerial refuelling tankers to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, with at least 16 of the aircraft seen at runways at the facility. The release of the images closely coincides with the exposure of the exact positions of a U.S. Army MIM-104 Patriot air defence system at the Al Udeid Air Base, and follows the publication of Chinese commercial satellite imagery from the Chinese satellite company MizarVision confirming the deployment of a U.S. Army THAAD anti-missile system at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. Unconfirmed reports have indicated that Chinese satellite intelligence and communications is being provided to significantly strengthen Iran’s ability to withstand a possible U.S.-led assault and launch retaliatory attacks, fuelling speculation that the publication of images on the positions of potential targets may be intended to send a signal that Iran’s targeting intelligence will be significantly greater in a future conflict due to Chinese support.
And CBS News is telling us that the USS Gerald R. Ford is being deployed to the Middle East…
On Thursday, CBS News reported that a second U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford and its flotilla of warships, would be dispatched to the Middle East, joining an already substantial American presence. Four U.S. officials said the carrier strike group is expected to redeploy from the Caribbean, a movement that would place formidable firepower within range of Iran at a moment of heightened strain.
When push comes to shove, the U.S. and Israel will both be hammering Iran at the same time.
And the goal will be regime change.
In fact, on Friday President Trump said that regime change in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen”…
Asked Friday about potential regime change in Iran, US President Donald Trump said, “it seems like that would be the best thing that could happen,” as he confirmed sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East “in case we don’t make a deal” with the Islamic Republic.
“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” Trump told reporters after visiting with troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, referring to Iran’s clerical rulers. “In the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives while they talk. Legs blown off, arms blown off, faces blown off. We’ve been going on for a long time.”
Pressed on who he would like to take over Iran, Trump declined to answer, but he added that “there are people.”
Telegraphing what you intend to do is never a good idea.
The nuts that are running Iran fully understand that the U.S. and Israel both want regime change.
And so Iranian leaders will use whatever tools they have at their disposal to prevent that from happening.
If it comes down to it, I believe that they would be willing to use biological and chemical weapons against Israeli cities and U.S. bases in the region…
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is developing biological and chemical warheads for the country’s long-range ballistic missiles, informed military sources told Iran International on Sunday.
The IRGC Aerospace Force is working on the unconventional warheads for ballistic missiles as it transfers missile launchers to eastern regions of Iran, the sources said.
The sources, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said these activities have accelerated in recent months and are being pursued amid rising regional tensions and Tehran’s concerns about the possibility of another direct confrontation with Israel and the United States.
If Iran uses unconventional weapons, Israel will not hesitate to strike back with overwhelming force.
And then we really will have an apocalyptic scenario on our hands.
The only way we are going to be able to avoid a final showdown with Iran is if a diplomatic solution can be found.
The following is what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is insisting on in any potential deal…
“The first is that all enriched material has to leave Iran. The second is that there should be no enrichment capability, not stopping the enrichment process, but dismantle the equipment and the infrastructure that allows you to enrich in the first place,” he said.
Netanyahu added that an agreement should also address Iran’s ballistic missile program, citing a 300-kilometer range limit under the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).
“There’s an MTCR limitation of 300 kilometers, and Iran is supposed to adhere to it. Of course, it doesn’t,” Netanyahu said.
He added that any agreement should also address its support for Iran’s regional allied groups.
Iran will never agree to any of that.
In fact, they will never agree to any restrictions on their ballistic missile program under any circumstances.
This is what Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi told the BBC earlier today…
“When we were attacked by Israelis and Americans, our missiles came to our rescue so how can we accept depriving ourselves of our defensive capabilities?” Takht-Ravanchi said, referring to last year’s 12-day war with Israel, during which Iran launched hundreds of missiles at Israel, which killed nearly three dozen Israeli civilians and wounded thousands.
Over and over again, the Iranians have made it abundantly clear that they are not willing to give the U.S. and Israel what they want.
Apparently Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have told Trump that it will be “difficult to impossible” to make any sort of a deal…
President Trump’s top advisors reportedly warned him that making a deal with Iran on its nuclear program is historically “difficult to impossible.”
Trump asked special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner what the chances were of reaching an agreement with Tehran, according to a senior US official, Israel’s Channel 12’s Barak Ravid said on Telegram Saturday.
The pair told the president history shows the West has never been able to strike a positive deal with the Islamic Republic leaders, but that they would continue to “take a tough line” during negotiations, Ravid reported.
And Secretary of State Marco Rubio is trying to get everyone to understand that nobody has “ever been able to do a successful deal with Iran”…
“We’re dealing with radical SHIA CLERICS, people who make geopolitical decisions on the basis of pure theology. It’s a complicated thing. NO ONE’S ever been able to do a successful deal with Iran!”
“If [negotiations] change — it’ll be obvious to EVERYONE.”
There isn’t going to be a deal.
At this point, that should be obvious to everyone.
And even if Trump changed his mind and decided not to go in, the Israelis have already told us that they would go in anyway.
So war is coming.
It is just a matter of counting down the days.
Over the weekend, massive crowds of protesters all over the world called for regime change in Iran.
In Munich, Germany approximately 250,000 protesters showed up…
Anti-Iran regime protesters gathered in major cities across the globe on Saturday calling for a leadership change in the Global Day of Action Rally.
Over 250,000 protesters rallied in Munich, Germany on Saturday on the backdrop of the Munich Security Conference.
“With the number of participants recorded, this gathering is one of the largest rallies held in Munich in recent years,” the Munich Police reported in a press release. “The peaceful atmosphere is particularly noteworthy, despite the high number of participants in the meeting.”
Lindsey Graham was at the rally in Munich, and he is making it very clear how he feels about regime change…
US Senator Lindsey Graham also spoke at the Munich rally and commented on his participation in a post on X/twitter.
“I have chosen the Iranian people over the ayatollah. I believe they could be good allies of the United States and would march the region toward the light.” Senator Graham wrote.
“I believe the ayatollah is a religious Nazi, who would keep the region and the world in turmoil. He’s a religious fanatic who wants to purify Islam, destroy the Jewish people, and come after the United States, which he refers to as the Great Satan.”
The protests in Los Angeles and Toronto were even larger than the one in Munich.
There is going to be so much pressure on President Trump to take action.
In the end, I don’t see how war is going to be avoided.
Of course the Chinese will be very upset with us when we go after Iran, because somewhere between 13 percent and 15 percent of the oil that they import comes from the Iranians.
And the Russians have very close ties with the Iranians as well.
This could be the spark that throws the entire planet into a state of turmoil.
And that would especially be true if unconventional weapons are used.
We are so close to a real life nightmare, but I don’t think that there will be any turning back now.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.