Now in our second week of the conflict, we have seen continuing damage to both Israel and Iran, as well as direct US intervention which nonetheless seems to have caused limited damage to Fordow and little damage to Iran's nuclear program. Regime change seems more elusive than ever, as even Iranians previously critical of the government now rally around it as they are attacked by two rabid imperialists at once. And Iran's government is tentatively considering a withdrawal, or at minimum a reconsideration, of their membership to the IAEA and the NPT. And, of course, the Strait of Hormuz is still a tool in their arsenal.
A day or so on from the strike on Fordow, we have so far seen basically no change in strategy from the Iranian military as they continue to strike Israel with small barrages of missiles. Military analysts argue furiously - is this a deliberate strategy of steady attrition on Israel, or indicative of immense material constraints on Iran? Are the hits by Israel on real targets, or are they decoys? Does Iran wish to develop a nuke, or are they still hesitating? Will Iran and Yemen strike at US warships and bases in response to the attack, or will they merely continue striking only Israel?
And perhaps most importantly - will this conflict end diplomatically due to a lack of appetite for an extended war (to wit: not a peace but a 20 year armistice) or with Israel forced into major concessions including an end to their genocide? Or even with a total military/societal collapse of either side?
Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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.
Hexbear succumbing to braindead doomerism yet again
THE CEASEFIRE WILL NOT HOLD, Israeli fascist politics will not allow it to, as the damage is assessed and censorship is lifted the Israeli public will demand revenge. Obviously that will take the form of more massacres against Palestinians but everyone including the zionists know it was Iran who bloodied Israel's nose, once the breath of relief is made the fury will re-emerge
Iran's public is beyond fury and the reformists are going to pay a massive electoral and social cost for their incompetence and capitulationism
The neoconservative didn't get what they wanted, what you think these people even understand the concept of backtracking, whoever in the Iranian military or establishment came up with the idea to attack the Qatar base is a genius, the neocons WILL NOT LET THAT GO UNPUNISHED
Everything points to another imperial miscalculation, I give it a week or two
It doesn’t matter if the ceasefire holds or not. The very fact that Iran is agreeing to it means that Iran is no longer confident it can win a war of attrition, and basically have been defeated because they cannot control their skies. Or it shows that Iranian leadership has learned nothing and continues to negotiate with agreement incapable perfidious war criminals. Why are they “at the negotiating table” again? The “negotiation table” will be their Afghanistan.
They were just earlier talking about a 6 month or 2 year war. What happened to that? It was bullshit and they were just gonna give up the first moment their enemies felt like it? Oh you don’t want to fight anymore? Why don’t we both take a breather! This is like if Russia retreated 12 days into the SMO because Ukraine didn’t feel like fighting anymore and just pretended it was a tie.
So what if Israel breaks the ceasefire? Iran will rattle its sabers and shoot a couple missiles and agree to a new ceasefire (that also won’t last). They will rinse and repeat this salami slicing until Iran is a broken dysfunctional state, the Israelis get to control the pace, they get the opening blow and the final blow, they deal disproportionate damage and Iran does a symbolic response. The long term extrapolation of this is Israeli victory.
Iran had exhausted Israel’s interceptor supply, their AD is failing at way higher rates now. If Iran is able to continue firing ballistic volleys and simply chooses peace instead, they are dangerously stupid and naive and letting Israel restock to come back next week. If Iran is unable to continue to firing ballistic volleys, the war is lost already and Iran’s entire military strategy seems failed.
So basically Iran is fucked either way, either they are idiotic with no sense of preservation, or they fought and were defeated and have to bow out. Them agreeing to the ceasefire is confirmation of how fucked they are, as they wouldn’t agree to it otherwise
No all it signals is the reformist poltical elite want to go back to the status quo or they want to buy time, that's it
It doesn't tell us anything about Iran's capabilities, the desires of the military or public opinion
All this has confirmed is that liberals are liberals, well we already knew that so this can't be used as a ticket for doomerism
Also if Iran was as fucked as you claim, then A: they would've surrendered a week ago or B: after Trump dropped the bunker busters
Instead they launched missiles at Qatar, liberals are cowards they don't do last hurrahs, so obviously the reformists had some source confidence from which to draw on
Right now liberal programming has taken hold and we're in a "fuck around find out" stage for both sides, not a "oh my God! Everything's collapsing like Syria" stage
So the reformist political elite still have the power to do diplomacy and war strategy? Then Iran is fucked! Like I said, why are these perpetual losers still at the wheel? If Iran can’t get these fucks out of power then they cannot win any conflict.
It’s war. Let the military and IRGC hardliners call the shots, have the Supreme Leader assume more direct control and get a leash on the foreign ministry and the capitalists.
If Iran still has capabilities and refuses to exercise them and still shows restraint, their political leadership and strategists are massive failures and fuck ups. The public demands the hardline position and does not want a half ass unjust ceasefire. So why is the reformist leadership so out of touch?
It’s confirmed that Iran is still letting these Liberals run the show, and they are flooring the pedal off the cliff and nobody is stopping them.
It doesn't matter at this point whether the reformists are fuck ups, their popularity is about to take a beating and the Israelis are going to deny them their liberal desires
But the Iranian military is still solid, the Iranian public is solid and the hardliners are winning poltical capital and all three now have some time to regroup and prepare
It's a hiccup that will pop Iran's hip into place
Reformists been taking straight Ls for years now. Nothing changes. They still keep doing it