Iranian missiles rain down on the U.S. base. With terrifying precision, a new generation of maneuverable warheads slips past American Patriot interceptors. In just 20 minutes, the devastation is staggering - over half a billion dollars’ worth of F-35s and advanced U.S. combat jets are reduced to smoking wreckage. And If you think this scenario is purely fictional then you don't know how close to full-blown war we currently are. For two months, the U.S. has been strengthening its forces in the Middle East. At Diego Garcia, deep in the Indian Ocean, sits six B2 spirit bombers - America's most cutting edge operational aircraft and the only one slated to carry the GBU-57 bomb. These aircraft, and the two GBU-57s that each one carries, are a critical threat to Iran because of their ability to evade air defenses and destroy deeply buried underground military structures. But the U.S. has also sent dozens of F-35s and other combat aircraft, including F-15s, F-16s, and A-10s to the region. This is not part of our fictional scenario - this is currently underway and preparing the way for a major strike against Iran. But Iran won't take it sitting down, and as advanced as America's air power is, it's completely helpless on the ground. Setting the stage to conflict is simmering tensions between Iran and the United States. One of the first acts of the new American administration was to put maximum pressure on Iran - the President is seeking a new deal with Iran to ensure it doesn't become a nuclear power. The only problem is, Iran refuses to negotiate with the White House, and from their point of view, why should they? America has proven its word is worthless - it previously signed a deal with Iran to loosen sanctions in exchange for giving up its nuclear ambitions. Then, a few years later despite being in full compliance,the deal was torn up. In the following years, new deals were proposed and with the new administration in the White House, progress has stalled completely. America’s subsequent attacks on allies and threats to invade their territory has only made the United States an increasingly unreliable negotiator. So, Iran has demanded third party talks over its nuclear program. The reason for this is that if it can get a third party like Qatar or the UAE to mediate talks, then they will become politically invested. Another betrayal by America will have political ramifications for the third nation as well. It’s a strategic move to ensure the U.S. keeps its promises - especially now that its reputation on the global stage has taken a hit. For Washington though this is seen as an insult, and so, talks are currently being refused. Instead, the U.S. President has ordered a massive military buildup in anticipation of military action against Iran. In response, all of America's middle eastern allies and partners - save for Israel - have shut down their air space to US combat aircraft, limiting the routes by which US warplanes could approach Iran. This dramatically increases the threat to American aviators, even those flying B2 stealth bombers - it makes their approaches very predictable, allowing Iran to concentrate air defenses in specific areas. So how would any potential conflict play out? Internal politics within Tehran are at a boiling point. The regime is increasingly unpopular and slowly losing grip on the population. The people of Iran are starting to embrace increasingly liberal values over the strict conservative religious order imposed on them. Headscarf mandates are being challenged by both men and women, and clashes with the secret morality police are frequent occurrences on social media, inflaming tensions. The American military buildup comes hot on the heels of Iran's embarrassing failure to strike at Israel in one of the largest missile attacks in history. The October 2024 attack saw over 200 missiles launched at Israel in two waves - but the only direct casualty was a Palestinian civilian who was crushed by the debris from an Iranian missile. The attack wasn't just a major success for Israel and its allies, but a massive embarrassment for Iran. This was after a previous failure in April 2024 when it launched the world's largest drone attack and achieved similar results. The Israeli dismantling of Hezbollah and the near-total annihilation of Hamas has sent shockwaves across the region. And with Iranian proxy forces being pushed out of Syria as well, the cumulative effect has been humiliating for Iran’s hardline leadership. Now the American military buildup, meant to intimidate Iran, is seen as the last straw. Pressure mounts from senior figures within the Tehran regime to act, or face a political crisis. The Supreme Leader reluctantly gives his approval for a surprise attack on US forces. This is meant to bloody America's nose and hopefully deter them from seeking further escalation. Have you ever wanted to build your own website but felt overwhelmed by the cost, complexity, or time commitment? Well, you can forget those worries because today's sponsor, Odo, has made website creation effortless, fast, and accessible for everyone. With Odo's website builder, you can craft a sleek, professional website in just a few clicks. No coding needed. Whether you're an entrepreneur, freelancer, or working on a passion project, having a website is a game changer for sharing your vision and building credibility. Odo's intuitive drag and drop system makes designing your site feel like second nature, and with their AI-powered tools, you can instantly refine your text, generate fresh content, and optimize your messaging. Need a more compelling call to action? Done! Want your site to stand out with polished copy? Odo has you covered. The best part, your first app with Odo is completely free, forever. That includes unlimited hosting, customer support, and even a custom domain for your first year. No hitting costs, no surprises. So don't wait, click the link in the description to try Odo's free website builder today, and bring your ideas to life. Building the website you've always imagined has never been easier. 2:45 AM, May 12th, 2025 The scheduled attack order is broadcast to mobile launchers in the Fars Province along with above ground and underground missile bases in Khuzestan. Heavy GPS spoofing acts as an electromagnetic shield around the bases just in case the US had caught wind of the attack and was launching a preemptive attack. But no such American attack is incoming. The attack order has remained secret and Iran's missile forces have been on highest alert already for months. The target is Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, America's largest Middle Eastern facility. It's the key hub for US Central Command, whose area of operations extends across all of Iran. The goal is to destroy the base's runways and adjoining runway infrastructure directly supporting air operations. The base's hardened aircraft shelters currently housing F-22 Raptors, B-1 Lancers, and F-35s are a secondary target. The air traffic control tower is also slated for destruction. But the high priority target is the US CENTCOM command post buried deep under the base. The strike package consists of 20 Zolfaghar ballistic missiles, 20 Dezful ballistic missiles, 10 Sejil ballistic missiles, 15 Fateh Mobin missiles, and 20 Shahed-136 loitering munitions. Defending Al Udeid is a THAAD battery and three Patriot batteries, augmented recently with reinforcements from the continental United States. The base also sports several C-RAM systems for last ditch defense around key installations. Out at sea, two American AEGIS equipped ships patrol the waters. Mobile launchers in the Fars Province are the first to fire, quickly followed by launches from two of Iran's underground missile bases in Khuzestan. The missiles are prepped and fired completely from underground, with personnel loading new missiles into the firing silos without ever exposing themselves or their missiles to open sky. The fiery plumes of the missile's rocket engines are immediately spotted by loitering American infrared satellites. Dozens of signatures are registered in the first 20 seconds. An alert is immediately sent to the US's National Military Command Center in Washington and from there to US Centcom headquarters in Tampa, Florida. The alert is then forwarded to Al Udeid and all regional American military bases - even as far south as Diego Garcia. Within seconds of the first wave of missiles firing, three small civilian ships just off the shore of Qatar begin firing missiles of their own. These are Iran's Fateh Mobin - 29.5 feet (9 meters)long infrared homing missiles that can be used to attack land targets or in the anti-ship role. They're also small enough to be loaded into cargo containers and disguised as regular cargo, giving them a huge element of surprise. The Fateh Mobin are targeting the American air defense radars and satellite dishes, hoping to blind the US defense against the rest of the incoming missiles. Also lifting off from civilian ships just off the coast is a swarm of drones. Some of these are small drones that'll be used to monitor the attack and feed back intelligence to Iranian military commanders. But from containers right on the ships decks, a swarm of 20 Shahed 136 drones are unleashed. Each container holds five of the drones. They're launched using compact rocket boosters, one after the other, before switching to their rear propellers and diving into formation. The drones accelerate to 115 miles per hour (185 kph), well behind the subsonic Fateh Mobin missiles. Both however take the same approach to their targets, after an initial arc up into the air, they dive for the wavetops and then ride right above the sea staying under American radar. The only warning the Americans get is a brief alert as Patriot air defense radar spots the missiles and drones on their initial launch. An alert has rung out across the base, and American soldiers rush to hardened bunkers rated to withstand missile attacks. Pilots meanwhile rush to their aircraft as air crews heroically ignore orders to seek shelter and instead scramble to get aircraft ready for takeoff. If the aircraft can be moved off the vulnerable flightline and put into the sky, they have a greater chance of survival. The Iranians chose an opportune time to strike- the hardened shelters are filled to capacity, leaving many American planes sitting out in the open. As the Fateh Mobin missiles approach at almost supersonic speed, air defense radars begin to track them. For the first phase of their attack, they've hidden below the horizon thanks to the curvature of the earth, but as they get closer they lose that cover and are spotted. However, they've managed to close to within just a few dozen miles by now and are moving at just shy of the speed of sound. Patriot interceptors fire off, but there's no time for a second volley. Of the 15 incoming missiles, 9 are destroyed by Patriot interceptors. C-RAM stations light up the sky as the missiles slip inside of Patriot's engagement envelope, shooting out tungsten into the sky at a fearsome rate. The sky lights up with laserlike fire from their tracers, and three more explosions light up the dark as the C-RAMs strike true. But three of the missiles slip past US defenses. Using AI, they designate themselves to priority targets. Two missiles slam straight into the air traffic control tower, destroying it completely. The third missile homes in on a Patriot radar and knocks it out of the fight. Iran was hoping for greater success from the first wave of the surprise attack, but the destruction of the air traffic control tower will seriously hamper American efforts to coordinate air operations. And while the base has multiple air defense radars to protect it, knocking one offline will put a dent in the US's ability to defend against the rest of the incoming threats. The Sejiil missiles arrive next, moving at hypersonic speeds as they drop down on the base from an extremely high apogee. Patriot interceptors fire off, but the missiles are moving fast - eight out of 10 of the missiles are destroyed. The other two strike a fuel tank and one of the hardened shelters, destroying the F-22 inside. The depot explodes, setting off a fire that threatens to spread to adjoining fuel tanks. Despite the still-ongoing strikes, firefighting forces brave the onslaught to attempt to avert a full-blown catastrophe. Out at sea, thanks to networked defenses the Navy's two AEGIS equipped vessels begin lending their own support to the base's defense. The Shahed drones are targeted and destroyed - only two of them manage to slip through. Meanwhile, the rest of Iran's missiles are arriving in numbers, greeted high in the atmosphere by American interceptors. A fireworks show results as missiles and interceptors collide at hypersonic speeds, the debris itself becoming deadly to anyone caught out in the open as it spreads out over several square miles. Another two hardened aircraft shelters are struck, and multiple F-35s caught on the flight line are destroyed. The Shahed drones that survive to arrive at the base find the C-RAM systems to be out of ammunition, and dip low to strike at exposed aircraft. The entire attack is over in less than a half hour. Most of Iran's weapons have been intercepted, and yet the US has already lost nearly half a billion dollars in aircraft alone. Damage to the base will mount to several billion dollars. It'll take days for basic operations to begin again and weeks for normal operations to resume. One American pilot is killed, along with several ground crew and dozens of Americans suffer traumatic brain injuries from the shock of the explosions. The debris kills one civilian outside of the base and wounds several others, causing outrage from Qatar. The question is- what happens next? While the previous scenario may have been fictional, it's very much a real possibility - and Iran is more than capable of pulling off such an attack. Knowing that they are outclassed by the US conventionally, Iran has historically sought out asymmetrical ways of countering American conventional power. The use of a large missile force and drones is one of those ways - with some small enough to be camouflaged as civilian containers for just such a surprise attack. Currently, America's options for attacking Iran are limited. Despite all its power, the US very much needs the support of allies and partners - and at the moment it's not getting it. Nations like Jordan and Saudi Arabia may not be friends of Tehran, but they also don't want to see a regional war in their own backyard. The collateral damage and resulting refugee crisis is enough to deter these nations from greenlighting a US attack on Iran - this is why their airspace remains closed to any American warplane on its way to Iran. This is a big problem for American war planners, because Iran has a formidable air defense capability. The nation suffers from a mix of old and new technology, but it still presents a significant threat to US planes carrying out an attack - especially when their avenues of approach to their target are limited and thus well known. With enough air search radars in one location, even the stealthy B-2 is bound to be spotted. This is why a successful B-2 mission requires very careful planning around enemy air defenses rather than straight through them. A land war is out of the question, as the US has no desire to get involved in another land war in the Middle East so soon. Iran's 610,000 active duty troops also poses a significant challenge, mostly because they can do something that Iraq's military couldn't do when it faced a US threat twice in its history: strike directly at American staging areas. Iran was a keen observer of the first Gulf War and the second invasion of Iraq, learning valuable lessons about how to defend against the American military. Chief amongst those lessons is that under no circumstances can you allow the US to stage its forces prior to an invasion. Once US troops arrive in-theater in large numbers, it's impossible to remove them. Thus, Iran invested heavily into its massive missile programs, giving it the ability to strike at all possible staging areas the US could use in an invasion of Iran. It doesn’t matter how much stronger the U.S. military is - superiority means nothing if you can’t even get your troops into the fight America's options are thus limited in a war with Iran to the use of air and missile strikes. These are unlikely to achieve the US's goal of either a regime change or a course correction on both nuclear and missile programs. Yet the Iranian regime faces one key weakness it didn't before - the Iranian people are growing increasingly tired of the regime and they could become susceptible to US psychological warfare and influence operations. America's strategy to defeat Iran would thus likely revolve around the destruction of military targets and power plants in the country, neutralizing military power but also destroying the means to produce electricity. An increasingly angry citizenry would then likely rise up and demand a change of regime - Iran is already facing electricity shortages that are deeply unpopular with the population. It's not just electricity, it's also natural gas for heating and cooking along with a shortage of gasoline. On average, Iran has a 20% deficit of electricity, a 25% natural gas deficit, and gasoline availability can be spotty at best. The energy crisis the nation finds itself in is one of its own making - along with the cost of financial sanctions by the international community. In order to avoid a full-blown public rebellion, Iran invests as much as 25% of its GNP each year on subsidies for energy - making it dirt cheap for the public. But that's only when it's actually available. These subsidies also sap the Iranian checkbook to the point that it's unable to keep up payments on the import of energy from the few places willing to trade with Iran. The energy subsidies may make the Iranian people complacent and prevent them from rebelling. But it also means that there's no financial incentive for the private sector to invest into energy development. The problem is a self-feeding one, growing worse every year. Due to a lack of investment, Iran can't develop more energy infrastructure, and yet it also can't afford to continue providing the energy that already exists. What few attempts at expansion of energy infrastructure are often met with huge inefficiencies and corruption. A lot of the money is siphoned off by corrupt politicians or simply lost in inefficiency. The fact that Iranian gas is so cheap also means that it's creating a black market of its own making. It can be very profitable for enterprising Iranians to simply smuggle a significant amount of gasoline out of the country to sell to neighbors, decreasing available supply inside Iran itself. And then there's Iran's poor foreign policy decisions. For almost a decade Iran provided Syria with up to 100,000 barrels of oil a day completely for free, even as its own citizens were experiencing gasoline shortages. The charity was at the time supporting Iranian interests inside Syria. But with the collapse of the national government there and the ousting of Iranian proxies, the energy investment is now a decade-long foible with no payoff. This energy crisis spirals into other areas of the Iranian economy, increasing prices everywhere from construction to food and limiting economic activity. Iran is basically a pressure cooker that's about ready to explode. A single successful American military campaign against the regime that avoids heavy civilian casualties could be all that's needed for major regime change in the country. And that's why Iran has taken its own defense so seriously despite all of its budget problems. Without the help of allies and partners in the region, the US may be able to topple the Tehran regime, but at significant cost to itself. An America First policy that ignores allies has turned what should be an easy tactical victory to a potential minefield of consequences for the US and the region at large. What do you think would be the biggest risk if the U.S. and Iran actually went to war? Would it stay regional - or spiral into something much bigger? Drop your thoughts in the comments Now go check out Iran's World War III Plan, or click this other video instead!