this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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Bulletins and News Discussion from June 16th to June 22nd, 2025 - Iran, Harden Your Heart
(hexbear.net)
Image is of destruction and damage inside Israel, sourced from this article.
Iran and Israel have struck each other many times over the last few days. There has been a general focus on military facilities and headquarters by both sides, though Israel has also struck oil facilities, civilian structures and hospitals, and in return for this, Iran has struck major scientific centers and the Haifa oil facilities.
Israel appears to have three main aims. First, to collapse the Iranian state, either through shock and breakdown by killing enough senior officials, or via some sort of internal military coup. Second, to try and destroy Iranian nuclear sites and underground missile cities, or at least to paralyze them long enough to achieve the first and third goals. And third, to bring the US into a direct conflict with Iran. This is because the US better equipped to fight them than Israel is (though victory would still not be guaranteed depending on what Iran chooses to do).
Iranian nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground (800 meters), far beyond the depth range of even the most powerful bunker busters (~70 meters or so), and built such that the visible ground entrances are horizontally far away in an unknown direction from the actual underground chambers. Only an extremely competent full-scale American bombing force all simultaneously using multiple of the most powerful conventional (perhaps even nuclear) bunker busters could even hypothetically hope to breach them (and we have seen how, in practice, American bunker busters have largely failed to impair or deter Ansarallah). There are several analysts on both sides who have concluded that it is entirely impossible to physically prevent Iran from building nukes.
I fully expect the US to join the war. I believe the current ambiguity is a deliberate invention of the US while they work to move their military assets into position, and as soon as they are ready, the US will start bombing Iran. After that, Iran's leadership must - if they haven't already - harden their hearts, and strike back with no fear, or risk following the path of Libya, Syria, and Iraq, either into either surrender, occupation, or annihilation. Every day where they do not possess a nuke is a day where lives are being lost and cities are being bombed.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
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Trump..... Uses an MOAB in Afghanistan, used nuclear brinksmanship against north korea, just YESTERDAY mulls tactical nukes in Iran and libs wonder why those of us outside of the US would want nukes or some deterrent. Even your dems are bloodthirsty genocidal maniacs and a guy like trump or worse is one election away in a highly flawed democracy with racist gerrymandering...... And we should just trust this international "order".
These fuckers will lead us all into an abyss
To paraphrase a (obvious) point made by Will on Chapo recently, if you aren't under the aegis of NATO, the only thing a country can do to protect its sovereignty is to get nukes.
and if you are under the aegis of NATO, how sovereign are you, really.
I think the only real "sovereign" NATO members (outside the United States) are France (they have their own nukes, have shown independence from NATO before and even left for a bit) and Turkey.
here's a quick list of all the countries who get actual sovereignty in practice:
USA
France
Turkey
Israel
DPRK
Vietnam
Russia
China
Laos
India
Pakistan
Cuba (questionable due to the severity of the blockade)
Venezuela
Brazil
Nicaragua
Mexico (constantly contended by the US)
Alliance of Sahel States
Maybe Iran?
Maybe South Africa?
that's it!
I think this list is missing a few. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are most definitely sovereign, no question there. They are allied with the United States, sure, but they play both sides. Saudi Arabia is a member of BRICS and has a very good relationship with China. The UAE has an increasingly independent foreign policy, notably supporting a side in the Sudanese civil war actively opposed by the United States. Indonesia too is sovereign. Their decision to forbid nickel refining outside of Indonesia demonstrates this quite clearly. They're too big to be just a puppet. Finally I'd add Singapore, another "plays both sides" city state that is very savvy at protecting their own independence. You could potentially make a case for Malaysia as well, and Thailand (though these are weaker cases).
All reasonable additions! I'd considered the Gulf monarchies but not the others.
I honestly think the Dems would already have declared war
Harris might have even carried out strikes at the same time that Israel did, to show how they're "joint partners against Iranian authoritarianism and terror" or whatever word salad the finest in the Democratic Party can produce
And who knows if that would have had a different ultimate result but it would be unquestionably worse than Israel alone FAing and now FOing while Trump sits back and says "Two weeks, folks! Mr Khamenei, very bad guy, we want him to surrender! He doesn't want to, but he will! Fordow! Our beautiful bombers, people are saying they're the biggest and best bombers the world has ever seen, just yesterday a handsome general walked up to me and said it! Very powerful! But I'm a nice guy, I'll give them two weeks!"
The platform they approved (PDF) at the DNC last year attacked Trump from the right on Iran and insisted that Iran could develop nukes "in a matter of weeks." They criticized Trump for not bombing Iran:
Thank you this is something I was looking for but I forgot which specifically
The same dems that brag about or roll their eyes at the mention of countless dead on iraq? I'm shocked
That demon Albright and her "the price is worth it" tells you all you need to know about Dems and America
On children too. Thats insanity I saw libs on r3s3t3ra defend because they're too brainwashed. And those are the so called progressive ones. Irredeemable country.
i totally understand why Mao said all that stuff abt the atomic bomb now