This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse Blog. 

What do you think Iran is going to do once we start bombing their nuclear facilities?  They know that it is coming, and they have been preparing to respond.  When Iranian missiles are raining down on Israeli targets and U.S. military bases throughout the Middle East, there will be no turning back.  We will officially be at war with Iran.

Needless to say, a war with Iran would be far different from our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Iranians have the 8th largest military on the entire planet, and they are armed to the teeth with highly advanced missiles.  It would take a “shock and awe” campaign that is unlike anything we have ever seen before to subdue Iran, and full-blown regime change would probably require an invasion.

Most people simply do not realize how close we are to an apocalyptic scenario in the Middle East.  On Friday, President Trump revealed that he has issued a very chilling ultimatum to the Iranians…

President Donald Trump on Friday revealed that he has sent a letter to Iran warning that it can either “make a deal” with Washington, D.C., on its nuclear program or face the U.S. “militarily.”

“I said, I hope you’re going to negotiate, because it’s going to be a lot better for Iran,” Trump told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on “Mornings with Maria,” in reference to a letter he sent to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal,” he said. “I would prefer to make a deal, because I’m not looking to hurt Iran.”

Subsequently, President Trump informed reporters that were gathered in the Oval Office that “something’s going to happen” with Iran “very, very soon”…

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that something related to Iran is “going to happen very soon”.

“We have a situation with Iran that something’s going to happen very soon, very, very soon. You’ll be talking about that pretty soon, I guess,” Trump told reporters at the Oval Office.

“And hopefully we can have a peace deal,” he added. “You know, I’m not speaking out of strength or weakness. I’m just saying I’d rather see a peace deal than the other [option], but the other will solve the problem.”

I know that President Trump would prefer to make a peace deal with the Iranians.

But the Iranians are already ruling out any sort of a deal…

The letter appeared to have been addressed to Iran’s supreme leader, the 85-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has recently opposed negotiations with the US so long as economic sanctions are in force.

The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, responded by saying: “We will not enter any direct negotiations with the US so long as they continue their maximum pressure policy and their threats.”

And there are rumors on social media that the Iranians are threatening to destroy all U.S. bases in the region if they get attacked…

Iran has issued a final warning to the US and Israel through Saudi Arabia.

An attack on Iran is tantamount to the destruction of all US bases in the region and the destruction of all Israeli nuclear facilities.

This is a crisis that should have been dealt with during the Biden administration.

At this point, the Iranian nuclear program has advanced to a very alarming stage…

Rafael Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency director, told the IAEA board this week that Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% had reached 275kg. He said: “Iran is the only country that enriches uranium to this level without having nuclear weapons.”

That quote stunned me.

Nobody can deny what the Iranians are attempting to do.

If they stay on the path that they are on, it won’t be too long before they are able to produce multiple nuclear weapons…

The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has repeatedly warned in recent months that Iran is pushing forward in its development of near-nuclear-grade uranium and now possesses enough uranium, if further enriched, to develop five nuclear weapons.

President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have both repeatedly stated that Iran will never be allowed to produce a nuclear weapon.

And since Iran is not willing to make a deal with Trump, it is only a matter of time before the bombing of Iran begins.

Needless to say, all hell will break loose once that happens.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is no longer providing intelligence to Ukraine, and President Trump has suspended all shipments of military aid in an attempt to force the Ukrainians to the negotiating table.  When he was asked about this during an interview that aired on Sunday, he suggested that Ukraine “may not survive anyway”…

President Trump suggested that Ukraine might not be able to survive against Russia even if the US forged ahead with full-blown support for its fight.

Trump’s remarks came while defending his decision to draw down support to Ukraine in the face of Polish President Andrzej Duda’s and others’ concerns that Europe lacks the might to prop up Kyiv without the US.

“Well, it may not survive anyway,” Trump told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” in an interview that aired Sunday.

The Russians already had the upper hand, and now their troops are surging forward.

On Friday, it was being reported that three-quarters of the Ukrainian force in Kursk is “almost entirely surrounded”…

The fuse has been burning slowly, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s risky August invasion of Russia’s Kursk region is about to blow up in his face in spectacular fashion — as thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are suddenly in imminent peril of being encircled, according to open source intelligence analysts. The crisis comes as Zelensky is under increasing US pressure to reach a negotiated end to the war — and a loss of captured Russian territory promises to make his already-deteriorated bargaining position even weaker.

According to DeepStateMAP.live, an interactive map of the war run by Ukrainian military bloggers, their country’s forces in Kursk are nearly cleaved into two, with roughly three-quarters of Ukraine’s forces in Russia almost entirely surrounded on Friday. Their last connection between the two forces was a kilometer long and under 500 meters wide at its thinnest section.

It isn’t just Ukrainian soldiers that are in danger of being cut off in Kursk.

There are apparently lots of western mercenaries there too, and at this moment they are being pounded into oblivion.

On Sunday, the Russians captured several more settlements…

Russia’s defense ministry on Sunday said troops took back the settlements of Malaya Loknya, Cherkasskoye Porechnoye and Kositsa from Ukrainian forces.

“The lid of the smoking caldron is practically closed,” Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president who is now the deputy chairman of the country’s Security Council, said on Sunday of Russian advances in Kursk. “The offensive continues. Carry on!”

Ukrainian and Russian military bloggers warn Kyiv’s hold on the region is more tenuous than ever, with Russian troops backed by North Korean forces launching incessant attacks.

Once the Russians have cleared out Kursk, they may use it as a launching pad to initiate an offensive in the direction of Kyiv.

So we will want to watch this area of the front very closely.

The Ukrainians have been caught off guard by how aggressive the Russians have been in recent days.  In one operation, Russian special forces actually “walked inside a gas pipeline to strike Ukrainian units from the rear”…

Russian special forces walked inside a gas pipeline to strike Ukrainian units from the rear in the Kursk region, Ukraine’s military and Russian war bloggers reported, as Moscow claimed fresh gains in its push to recapture parts of the border province that Kyiv seized in a shock offensive.

Many of our European allies are very frustrated with President Trump’s efforts to force Ukraine to the negotiating table because those efforts are hurting the Ukrainians on the battlefield.

But the truth is that President Trump is also trying to force Russia to the negotiating table…

 

 

I do not believe that threatening Russia is the correct approach.

In fact, I believe that if President Trump continues to threaten Russia it will backfire severely.

We have entered such a dangerous chapter of human history.  As Steve Bannon has astutely observed, we are “already deep into the kinetic part of the third World War”…

Bannon went on to explain that the casualties amassed in the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts have already exceeded the total deaths in the first phase of World War II, including the invasion of Poland, the fall of France and the Blitz over England.

“The world’s on the brink. We’re already deep into the kinetic part of the third World War,” Bannon asserted.

I really wish that more people understood this.

Bannon says that some portions of Ukraine “look like Dresden in 1945”, and he is 100 percent correct about that…

“Parts of Ukraine look like Dresden in 1945. You’re in a kinetic war right now that’s every bit as dangerous and every bit as brutal, if not more brutal, than the opening phase of World War 2,” he added.

Hundreds of thousands of Russians are already dead.

More than a million Ukrainians are already dead.

In the Middle East, we have already seen a tremendous amount of death and destruction, and now a final showdown with Iran is looming.

What will it take for people to finally wake up?

World War 3 is here, and once the bombing of Iran begins, that will ramp things up to an entirely new level.

Michael’s blockbuster entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. He has also written eight other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books, you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today