(End of the American Dream)—Instead of backing down, it appears that both sides are preparing to take the showdown in the Middle East to the next level. Of course we have already witnessed some absolutely stunning escalations during this past week. After Israel bombed the South Pars gas field in Iran, the Iranians responded by pummeling Qatar’s Ras Laffan natural gas complex. The damage that Israel and Iran caused in just 24 hours will set the global economy back for years. But the escalations that are ahead may dwarf anything that we have seen so far.
If the U.S. puts boots on the ground inside Iranian territory, that would be an absolutely massive escalation.
In response, the Iranians would likely totally freak out and there is no telling what they might do.
Ominously, CBS News is reporting that U.S. military officials “have made detailed preparations for deploying U.S. ground forces into Iran”…
Pentagon officials have made detailed preparations for deploying U.S. ground forces into Iran, multiple sources briefed on the discussions told CBS News.
Senior military commanders have submitted specific requests aimed at preparing for such an option as President Trump weighs moves in the U.S.-Israel-led conflict with Iran, the sources said.
Mr. Trump has been deliberating whether to position ground forces in the region, sources said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. It was unclear under what circumstances he would authorize the use of troops on the ground.
Just because “detailed preparations” are being made does not mean that President Trump will pull the trigger.
But we do know that lots of U.S. Marines are being sent to the Middle East.
In fact, ABC News is telling us that it appears that yet another group of Marines is going to be headed for the region…
Three Navy ships carrying 2,200 Marines left San Diego earlier this week for a previously scheduled deployment to the Indo-Pacific, but two U.S. officials tell ABC News their ultimate destination is likely the Middle East.
The 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) is aboard the USS Boxer, the USS Comstock and the USS Portland — along with 2,000 sailors.
If this group of Marines ends up in the Middle East, it will bring the grand total that have been deployed in recent days to about 9,000…
If it receives final orders to the Middle East, joining the 31st MEU, it will be an increase of close to 9,000 additional forces to the region.
The 31st MEU is still on its way to the Middle East from Asia after receiving orders from the Pentagon last Friday. Those Marines and ships are likely to arrive in the region sometime next week.
There are a number of important Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf that the Marines could be used to take.
At the top of that list would be Kharg Island, and we are being told that President Trump is “considering” a ground operation there…
Donald Trump is considering invading Iran’s Kharg Island to pressure Tehran into reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Three separate marine units, trained for amphibious assaults, have been deployed to the Middle East, with the Pentagon considering sending more to reinforce Operation Epic Fury.
Kharg Island, located 15 miles off Iran’s coast in the Persian Gulf, is the country’s main oil export terminal and critical to its fragile economy.
It could be argued that Kharg Island is the most critical piece of real estate the Iran controls.
Since approximately 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports go through Kharg Island, the goal would be to grab it and use it as leverage…
“Kharg Island, 90% of their oil comes through there. So you’ve got really two choices,” said retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, the former commander of U.S. Central Command. “You can destroy the oil infrastructure, which would give irrevocable damage to the Iranian economy and the global economy, or you could seize it to use as a bargaining chip, which doesn’t then permanently degrade the world economy.”
But I don’t think that we will see an operation to seize Kharg Island just yet, because it is going to take some time to get the Marines that are now being deployed into position.
And an anonymous source has told Axios that the U.S. military will “need about a month to weaken the Iranians more with strikes” before conditions will be right for an invasion of the island…
However, such an operation – which would leave US troops exposed to Iranian missiles and drones – would only be launched once Iran’s coastal military capabilities have been further degraded, sources told Axios.
“We need about a month to weaken the Iranians more with strikes, take the island and then get them by the balls and use it for negotiations,” one source said.
Invading Kharg Island would instantly eliminate about 90 percent of Iranian oil exports.
But it would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and that is what the world really needs at this point.
I think that U.S. officials are hoping that hitting Iran where it really hurts will force them to end the war on our terms.
But instead it could just cause the Iranians to lash out even more wildly.
On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that the next time we attack Iran’s energy infrastructure they will show “zero restraint”…
Here’s what Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted to X on Thursday: “Our response to Israel’s attack on our infrastructure employed FRACTION of our power. The ONLY reason for restraint was respect for requested de-escalation. ZERO restraint if our infrastructures are struck again. Any end to this war must address damage to our civilian sites.”
An invasion of Kharg Island would certainly qualify as an attack on Iran’s energy infrastructure.
So what would “zero restraint” look like?
Needless to say, if Iran does even more damage to Qatar’s Ras Laffan natural gas complex it will be catastrophic for the global economy.
But could it be possible that Araghchi was referring to something else?
At this stage, Iranian leaders are openly threatening to attack “parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations” all over the world…
Iran’s top military spokesman warned Friday that “parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations” worldwide won’t be safe for Tehran’s enemies.
Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi made the threat as Iran continues to be hit by American and Israeli airstrikes. It renewed concerns that Iran may revert to using militant attacks beyond the Middle East as a pressure tactic in the war.
They would like for us to believe that nowhere is safe.
But there is only so much that they could do with conventional weapons.
My concern is that the Iranians could end up using some of the unconventional weapons that they have been holding back.
Interestingly, the World Health Organization is publicly admitting that they are extremely concerned about the potential for a “nuclear incident” in the Middle East…
Officials at the World Health Organization have admitted that they are preparing for a “worst-case scenario” nuclear threat if the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran escalates.
Hanan Balkhy, WHO regional director for the eastern Mediterranean, said that staff remain “vigilant” for a nuclear incident following President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Iran in a joint campaign with Israel.
“The worst-case scenario is a nuclear incident, and that’s something that worries us the most,” Balkhy told Politico. “As much as we prepare, there’s nothing that can prevent the harm that will come … the region’s way — and globally if this eventually happens — and the consequences are going to last for decades.”
If Iran is pushed too far, I think that they will throw everything that they have left at us.
And if any unconventional weapons are used against Israel, I am convinced that they won’t show any restraint either.
We have reached such a dangerous moment in human history.
Both sides are absolutely determined to win this war, and a “point of no return” could be just around the corner.
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.
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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.