(End of the American Dream)—There are many people out there that seem to think that the Iranians have essentially surrendered by agreeing to this ceasefire, but that is not the case at all. The Iranians still hate the United States, they still hate Israel, and they still plan to move forward with their nuclear program. Ultimately, their long-term goals have not changed at all. But a ceasefire is certainly strategically advantageous for the Iranians at this moment, and so they eagerly embraced President Trump’s proposal. Unfortunately, those that believe that this ceasefire is the end of the story are way off base.
In the western world, we tend to view a ceasefire as a complete cessation of hostilities that leads to permanent peace.
But in Islam, a ceasefire is viewed very differently.
Islamic law allows for a temporary “tactical pause” in hostilities known as a “Hudna”, and it is considered to be a time to rearm and regroup in order to continue the fight later.
When I asked Google AI about the Islamic concept of a “Hudna”, this is what I was told…
- Temporary nature: A key characteristic of a hudna, particularly in modern contexts, is that it is a temporary pause in hostilities, not a permanent peace agreement. It is a limited cessation of violence, potentially for a fixed duration.
- Tactical advantages: For groups like Hamas, a hudna can be a tactical maneuver, allowing for regrouping, rearming, and preparation for future actions. It does not necessarily imply a recognition of the other side’s right to exist, but rather a temporary period of calm.
- Historical context: The concept of hudna is rooted in Islamic history, with the famous Treaty of Hudaybiyyah between Muhammad and the Quraysh tribe in 628 CE serving as a notable example. This historical precedent suggests a potential duration of around ten years for such truces.
- Difference from Western cease-fires: It’s crucial to understand that a hudna can differ significantly from Western concepts of a ceasefire or truce. While a Western cease-fire often aims to pave the way for a permanent peace, a hudna can be primarily a tactical tool for a period of calm, with the potential for hostilities to resume later.
A “Hudna” is not a permanent commitment, and it does not require Muslims to abandon their long-term goals.
The very first “Hudna” came in 628 AD. It was strategically advantageous for Muhammad to make temporary peace with his enemies, and then once he had rearmed and regrouped he was able to take Mecca in 630 AD…
The Treaty of al-Hudaybiya (Arabic: صُلح الْحُدَيْبِيَة, romanized: Ṣulḥ al-Ḥudaybiya) was an event that took place during the lifetime of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was a pivotal treaty between Muhammad, representing the state of Medina, and the tribe of the Quraysh in Mecca in March 628 (corresponding to Dhu al-Qi’dah, AH 6). The treaty helped to decrease tension between the two cities, affirmed peace for a period of 10 years, and authorised Muhammad’s followers to return the following year in a peaceful pilgrimage, which was later known as the First Pilgrimage. However this treaty was broken in two years. According to Islamic sources, the treaty was broken by the Quraysh, which led Muhammad to march against Mecca in 630 with an army of 10,000 men.
The goals of Iranian leadership are the same as they were last week. But they were being absolutely pummeled on the battlefield, and so they needed a pause in the action very badly.
Anyone that thinks that the Iranians are going to forgive and forget is just being delusional. The Iranians have very long memories, and they still want to kill their enemies and wipe the state of Israel off the map…
General Ebrahim Jabbari, senior advisor to the IRGC commander-in-chief and former commander of Supreme Leader Khamenei’s security unit, appeared on Channel 3 (Iran) on June 23, 2025. He suggested that the U.S. may have joined the conflict because Iran was on the verge of annihilating Israel. Jabbari stated that Iranians must “chop off President Trump’s hand” and “slit Netanyahu’s throat.” He also claimed that American military bases and warships in the region could be eliminated “in the blink of an eye,” and that Israel itself must be annihilated.
If the Iranians were strong enough to achieve their goals right now, they would do it.
But they aren’t strong enough, and so this ceasefire will give them much needed time.
Of course Iranian leaders are trying to spin this ceasefire as some sort of “strategic victory”…
The Iranian Supreme National Security Council announced on Tuesday that the Islamic Republic had achieved a significant strategic victory, asserting that it had “forced the enemies to seek a ceasefire.”
Citing the unity of the Iranian people, the steadfastness of its armed forces, and the guidance of its leadership, the Council emphasized that Iran had triumphed in the face of Israeli aggression. It noted that Iran’s military remains on high alert and prepared to respond decisively to any future provocation.
The Council underscored that through its vigilance, Iran’s calculated timing dismantled the enemy’s core strategy. According to Fars News Agency, the Council declared that the outcome compelled the Israeli entity to accept defeat and halt its aggression.
And the Supreme National Security Council is also making it clear that Iranian forces will remain ready with their “fingers on the trigger”…
The Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s top security body, said the Iranian armed forces, “trusting no words from the enemy and with fingers on the trigger, stand ready to deliver a decisive and punitive response to any hostile action,” according to a statement in Persian published by the semi-official Tasnim News Agency.
So don’t get too comfortable.
Fighting between the Israelis and the Iranians could erupt again at literally any moment.
But if fighting does erupt again, Israel will still have the advantage, and the Iranians understand this very well.
I think that the Iranians greatly overestimated the value of their ballistic missiles and air defense systems.
After everything that has transpired, it has become exceedingly clear that the Iranians will not be able to defeat Israel using conventional weapons.
So I expect that Iran will shift to a strategy that focuses on unconventional weapons.
Iran is a wounded predator, and I think that the Iranians still have a major role to play in the global drama that is unfolding all around us.
Today, I told a reader that I am getting whiplash from all the twists and turns that have been happening.
Unfortunately, I am convinced that there will be a lot more twists and turns before this story is over.
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.