(End of the American Dream)—Those that are crying “peace, peace” might want to take another look at what is happening on the other side of the world because there is no peace. Israel is conducting airstrikes in Lebanon, the military offensive in Gaza is moving forward, and high ranking terror leaders are being eliminated. Meanwhile, the Russians just unleashed the largest air assault on Ukraine that we have seen in more than three years, and Russian troops are gobbling up territory at a very rapid pace. On top of everything else, speculation is rampant that the war between Israel and Iran could suddenly erupt again at any moment. Echoing the opinions of so many other experts, Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis is warning us that “the Israeli-Iranian war is far from over”…
The headlines may proclaim a ceasefire, but let us be clear: the Israeli-Iranian war is far from over. What we are witnessing is not peace—it is a tactical intermission. The guns may be momentarily silent, but the war remains alive in motive, method, and mindset.
Sadly, I believe that he is quite correct.
Israel has publicly warned that it could strike Iran again. The primary reason why Israel attacked Iran in the first place was to eliminate the threat of Iran’s nuclear program, and we just got even more evidence that goal has not yet been achieved. The following originally comes from the Washington Post…
The United States obtained intercepted communication between senior Iranian officials discussing this month’s U.S. military strikes on Iran’s nuclear program and remarking that the attack was less devastating than they had expected, said four people familiar with the classified intelligence circulating within the U.S. government.
The communication, intended to be private, included Iranian government officials speculating as to why the strikes directed by President Donald Trump were not as destructive and extensive as they had anticipated, these people said. Like some others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.
On the other side, the Iranians are thirsty for revenge and are promising that if war erupts again their strikes will be “more crushing and more devastating this time”…
In comments at the funeral of over 60 Iranians who have been martyred in the Israeli regime’s war of aggression against Iran, held in Tehran on Saturday, General Ali Mohammad Naeini said the Zionist regime and the US have failed to accomplish their declared objectives in the war.
“This is our final message to the Zionist regime and the delusional president of the US: If Iran’s national interests and assets are violated once again, our response will be different, more crushing and more devastating this time, in a way that it will accelerate the process of downfall of the (Zionist) regime,” the spokesman said.
Those that believe that Iranian leaders have turned over a new leaf and that they really want peace this time are just being delusional.
You see, the truth is that Iran is run by a bunch of “Twelver” Shiites that are waiting for “the Mahdi” to arrive.
And as Michael Youssef has aptly pointed out, “the Mahdi” is supposed to arrive during a period of great conflict…
Twelver Shiism is the largest branch of Shia Islam, and is defined by its belief in twelve divinely ordained Imams (rightful successors to Muhammad). The last Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, supposedly went into occultation (a miraculously hidden state) in the 9th century. Twelvers claim the Mahdi will one day reappear to establish global justice.
Many of Iran’s clerics fervently believe that, before the Mahdi can be revealed, an apocalyptic battle must be fought between faithful Muslims and the forces of evil. As a result, some Iranian leaders—and possibly the Ayatollah himself—are motivated to trigger a nuclear war to fulfill the ancient prophecies and force the appearance of the hidden Mahdi.
So the Iranian regime doesn’t want world peace. The Iranian regime wants chaos so that “the Mahdi” will come.
Enjoy this “pause” while you can, because it won’t last indefinitely.
Meanwhile, the IDF is using this time to hammer Hamas and Hezbollah with airstrikes.
Yesterday, a targeted airstrike in Gaza City killed one of the masterminds of the October 7th massacre…
On Saturday, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) announced that a targeted airstrike on the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City eliminated Hakham Muhammad Issa Al-Issa, a key Hamas leader and the mastermind behind the October 7 terrorist attack against Israeli civilians.
IDF shared that Al-Issa, one of the founders of Hamas’ military wing, led the terror group’s force build-up and the training and planning of the October 7 massacre. His current role was as Head of Combat Support Headquarters in Hamas’ military wing.
The day before that, the IDF conducted at least 12 strikes against an underground Hezbollah command center in southern Lebanon…
The IDF Air Force on Friday launched strikes on South Lebanon’s Beaufort mountain range targeting an underground Hezbollah command center.
According to reports from the area, at least 12 strikes hit the area around the village of Tebnit. Explosions were heard on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon area.
“This site is part of a significant underground project that was completely taken out of use following IDF strikes. The IDF identified rehabilitation attempts made by Hezbollah beforehand and struck terror infrastructure sites in the area,” the military said in a statement.
The day before that, an Israeli airstrike killed one of the top commanders of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force…
On Thursday, the IAF killed an elite Hezbollah terrorist commander, also in Lebanon’s Nabatiye Governorate.
The airstrike in the village of Baraachit, located less than four miles from the border, killed a commander in Hezbollah’s Radwan Force, a unit of terrorists specialized in infiltrating Israel and capturing areas around the Jewish state’s northern frontier, the IDF said.
Two days before that, an Israeli airstrike killed the head of the Al-Sadiq Currency Exchange…
On Tuesday, the Israeli Air Force killed Haytham Abdullah Bakri, the head of the Al-Sadiq Currency Exchange, in a strike in Kfar Dajjal, also in the Nabatiye Governorate. The exchange serves as a transfer mechanism for Hezbollah, handling funds originating from the Iranian Quds Force, the Israeli military said.
While all of those airstrikes have been going on, the Israeli military continues to conduct ground operations inside Gaza…
The evacuation order covered the Jabalia area and most Gaza City districts. Medics and residents said the Israeli army’s bombardments escalated in the early hours in Jabalia, destroying several houses and killing at least six people.
In Khan Younis in the south, five people were killed in an airstrike on a tent encampment near Mawasi, medics said.
As you can see, this isn’t a time of peace for Israel.
This is a time of war.
So don’t be fooled by this “pause” with Iran. That front of the war will erupt again at some point too.
Let me shift gears and talk about what is going on in Ukraine.
Many were hoping for peace, but instead it appears that the war has just shifted into another gear.
In fact, the Russians absolutely pummeled Ukraine with drones and missiles last night…
Ukrainian authorities said Russia had launched 477 drones and decoys, as well as 60 missiles of various types, at Ukraine overnight. The country’s air force said it had shot down 211 drones with another 225 straying before hitting their targets. Air defenses intercepted one of the short-range ballistic missiles, four of the Kalibr cruise missiles and 33 Kh-101 missiles, according to the military.
This bombardment was so unusual that NATO actually scrambled fighter jets in response…
NATO countries scrambled fighter jets early on Sunday, according to the Polish military, after a Ukrainian official said Moscow had launched its largest-scale air attack on the country in more than three years.
Poland’s Operational Command said its fighter jets, along with other NATO aircraft, were scrambled with ground-based air defenses and reconnaissance systems put on the “highest state of readiness” after Russia launched overnight attacks on Ukrainian soil.
On the ground, Russian troops have been taking ground at a rate that is much faster than earlier this year…
The rate of advance of the Russian army in June increased by 30% compared to May. If in May the rate of advance of the Russian Armed Forces was approximately 14 square kilometers per day, then in June it was on average 18 square kilometers per day in the period from June 1 to June 26.
During May, the Russian army advanced more than 400 square kilometers. The most active offensive was observed in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), as well as in the Sumy region.
For general comparison: in January the rate of advance was 325 square kilometers, in February – 191 square kilometers, in March – 133 square kilometers, in April – 177 square kilometers, in May – 418 square kilometers.
I realize that it is not a popular thing to say, but the truth is that the Russians are winning.
As Russian forces move forward, this is going to put an increasing amount of pressure on NATO to intervene more directly.
Of course if NATO intervenes directly in the conflict, that will put us just one step away from the unthinkable.
We really are living at a time of wars and rumors of wars.
Perhaps when the war between Israel and Iran erupts again, a lot more people will start to understand this.
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.