The analyst who foresaw the US-Iran conflict is now predicting it will drag on indefinitely — with catastrophic consequences for global food security that he says could put six billion lives at risk.
Jiang Xueqin, the Chinese-born commentator who goes by “Professor Jiang” online and has been called “China’s Nostradamus”, made the prediction during a two-hour conversation on The Diary of a CEO podcast with Steven Bartlett.
His Predictive History channel on YouTube has built a following of more than 2.5 million in under a year, with previous calls including Trump’s 2024 victory and the Iran invasion.
Why does the Iran war threaten global food supplies?
At the heart of his argument is the Strait of Hormuz: a 33-kilometre passage Iran has blocked since hostilities began, through which a significant portion of the world’s fertiliser supply chain normally passes. With insurers refusing to cover vessels, those shipments have stalled.
“The world depends on fertiliser,” Jiang told Bartlett, referencing an earlier episode of the podcast featuring economist Steve Keen. “Without fertilizers, the world could only sustain at most two billion people.”
That leaves six billion without a reliable food source. “What are the six billion people going to do? Just starve to death? No. They’re going to migrate,” he said. “And this is going to create a huge global crisis throughout the world.”
‘It’s a question of who’s going to starve’
According to IB Times, Jiang’s six billion figure is his own extrapolation, but institutional data supports the broader alarm. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation has warned this month that a third of all internationally traded fertiliser moves through the strait, with shortages expected to depress harvests well into 2027. The World Food Programme puts the human toll at 45 million additional people tipped into hunger.
IB Times World in Data research reportedly underlined the scale of the dependency, with artificial nitrogen fertilisers, manufactured via the Haber-Bosch process, underpining food production for close to half the world’s population. Strip those fertilisers from the system and an estimated 3.5 to four billion people would lose their primary means of sustenance, states the report.
Steve Keen, an honorary professor at University College London who predicted the 2008 financial crash, warned during his own Diary of a CEO appearance in April that India could exhaust its fertiliser stockpiles within two to three months.
“Food production on the planet could fall 10 to 25 per cent and there simply won’t be enough food for everyone on the planet,” he said. “Then it’s a question of who’s going to starve.”
He also highlighted the paradox facing Gulf States, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE among them, which ship vast quantities of fertiliser to the world while importing between 80 and 90 per cent of their own food.
Why does Jiang believe America wants the war to continue?
Rather than treating the food and energy crisis as an unfortunate by-product, Jiang presented it as a deliberate outcome – a prolonged conflict, he argued, compels the world to purchase American energy and reinforces the dollar’s dominance.
“This war in Iran benefits America tremendously. So why not have it go on for a long, long time?” he said.
Keeping the war going long-term would require American boots on the ground in large numbers, he argued, and pointed to legislation already in place as evidence the groundwork is being laid.
A provision enacted on 18 December 2025 under the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act will automatically enrol all men aged 18 to 26 in the Selective Service draft pool by December 2026. The bipartisan measure has no formal connection to Iran, and Congress would need a separate vote to activate an actual draft.
“In order to make sure this war goes on for a long time, you need ground troops. And you need a lot of ground troops. And that’s why you need a national draft,” he told Bartlett.
