We are at a critical point in the war with Iran right now. Yesterday, the US bombed Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, another big escalation. Iran retaliated with a heavy missile strike on Dimona, home to Israel’s most critical nuclear reactor. Side note: Iran has also declared that they have control over Israel's skies. This is a massive narrative violation, but it appears that Israel's defenses have been degraded enough that they are not able to stop Iran's missiles. Trump, who was just yesterday saying the war was almost over, just went on social media and gave Iran 48 hours to open Hormuz or he starts destroying power plants. Iran just responded and "warned that if its energy infrastructure is attacked, all energy, IT, and desalination facilities belonging to the U.S. and its allies in the region will be targeted." We are now at the very dangerous level of an escalation spiral. Iran has total control of the strait of hormuz, which if kept closed for another several weeks would bring down the global economy. The United States has lost all ability to negotiate a peace deal with Iran as 100% of trust has been forever lost, as we assassinated their leader and bombed their country in the middle of negotiations. Israel's leaders appear to want most of the middle east under their control, as they are simultaneously now trying to take Lebanon and have the US attempting to defeat Iran. The big problem now is Israel is losing and doesn't have the ability to stop Iran's missile strikes. In my opinion, Israel announcing the've incurred over 4k injuries, they are setting up for a major escalation, possibly a nuclear one. That's how badly they are losing. Trump's statement out of nowhere aligns with this imo. At this point, I think we are down to Trump having to ask China to negotiate an end to this war or things are going to get really ugly this next week. Or, Trump has to give in to Iran's demands and accept defeat. Those demands are as follows: -US military withdraws from the Middle East. -Rollback sanctions 60 days, -Financial compensation for economic damages. If those aren't accepted, then this war continues to get far worse, and we will see the worst energy crisis of any of our lifetimes, which will have far reaching consequences that we cannot comprehend. It will also mean that troops on the ground will be inserted into this war (9k US troops are on their way right now) which will go just as terribly as everything else in this war has gone so far. My thesis has not changed since day 1 of this war. It's not winnable, and the best thing we can do is get out of the situation as quickly as we can. Pray for our leaders, for humility, wisdom and restraint.