this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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Bulletins and International News Discussion from March 22nd to Whenever We Reach About 3000 Comments - The Empire In Zugzwang
(hexbear.net)
Image is one of many rallies in Iran in support of the government and the leadership.
short summary here, longish summary in spoiler tags below: Western standoff munition stockpiles now substantially depleted, therefore Western aircraft activity directly over Iran increasing (as is footage of attempted and actual hits against them) as the US attempts to transition more to using bombs dropped directly onto targets, Iran is increasingly in the driver's seat and controlling the conflict, world economy is fucked and yet could still get much worse very soon, if you require a car to live (especially if it's not electric) and cannot work from home then you have my sincere condolences
longish summary here
While I've seen several estimates on the current stockpiles of US and Zionist missiles and interceptors - somewhere in the realm of a third depleted, perhaps even up to half - it seems like we're reaching the point at which the US does not want to commit even more standoff munitions and is trying their luck against the Iranian air defense network directly.
We have already seen footage of Iran attempting to shoot down, and sometimes actually striking Western fifth generation planes like the F-35, and more footage along those lines is appearing for other plane models (with one side claiming that they evaded interception and the other claiming they hit it, etc etc, propaganda is everywhere, you know the drill). How much the US is willing to test their planes against Iranian air defense is a matter of debate. Strictly speaking, a few fighter jets and bombers shot down would be no catastrophic loss in the grand scheme of things, as the US has hundreds. However, the narrative of such a thing would be quite bad for the US - "You're telling me an OBLITERATED Iranian military can shoot down some of our most advanced equipment?? What are we gonna do against China?!" - and given Trump's deranged jingoistic rhetoric aimed to buoy markets, it's clear that he cares very deeply about narratives. Additionally, with Chinese exports of several critical metals to the US banned, the prospect of replacing these aircraft (and indeed the standoff munitions and the interceptors and the ground radars etc) is looking questionable.
All the while, Iran continues its strikes across the Middle East. Missile and drone strikes are reportedly on the uptick again, demonstrating that Iranian military capabilities have by no means been "destroyed" as Western propaganda claim, though it's impossible to sure there was ever a significant downtick due to Western censorship and outright fabrications. People around the world are gradually realizing the magnitude of the economic disaster that is occurring and may yet occur. Refineries and factories which deal with oil and gas directly are starting to slow down or stop production, and those who make products downstream of those are starting to follow them like dominoes. Outrage at gas station prices is rising, and many countries are considering limiting civilian driving and implementing work-from-home policies akin to the coronavirus pandemic. And now, threats are being made by Trump against both Kharg Island (where most Iranian oil is shipped from) and the Iranian electrical grid - which is highly decentralized and would require a prolonged bombing campaign to completely take out -and the promised Iranian reprisal would be apocalyptic to the Middle East. It would make oil prices rise to previously unfathomable heights as oil infrastructure turned off and remained off for months, perhaps years, and set in motion one of the world's greatest humanitarian catastrophes as the desalination necessary for tens of millions of people is shut down. It would also not be a symmetrical problem, as Iran does not rely on desalination for its water supply.
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.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on the Zionists' 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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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spoiler
Iran was firing HAWK SAMs from the Shah days and flying Yak 130 trainer aircraft on combat air patrols, while trying to integrate S-200/SA-5 systems with domestically produced Iranian radars because the original radars faced severe attrition vs previous airstrikes. Most of the Iranian Navy was destroyed in port or in turkey shoots by the US, including with ballistic missiles, and while Iran did have some modern advanced domestically produced air defence systems (some clearly using Russian and Chinese technology, including straight up Buk clones), that's never going to be a match vs US and Israeli air power. It's not like the US went and disabled a modern integrated air and missile defence system with the latest Chinese technology and shot down J-20s. Yes, the US and Israel are probably the only air forces in the world (China has the technology too, but it's never seen combat) which could disable the Iranian air defence network due to the sheer quantity of systems Iran has and the advanced Iranian domestic industry, don't get me wrong here. Iranian air defences were a serious threat to the US and Israel. But no one can do SEAD/DEAD like the USA, they have a massive technology advantage there that enables these turkey shoots of say the Iranian Navy. They've clearly demonstrated that. But there are far more modern air and missile defence networks out there, far more modern air forces, and more modern navies.
Iran's biggest successes have not come from directly confronting the US and Israel, although they did hit an F-35 and take it out of the fight, and hit a few key radars. While these have had little to no effect on the overall trajectory of the war so far, they still are hits which are notable. Iran's biggest successes has been it's asymmetrical campaign to impose costs on the US and global economy, via making use of its shorter range missile and drone arsenal, not used in previous conflicts. Shutting down the Strait of Hormuz and bombing Gulf Arab states energy infrastructure is the biggest succes Iran has had here, it's kept the lights on in Iran (the US and Israel would've destroyed Iranian energy and electrical infrastructure otherwise), and the US may be forced to deploy ground troops to try reopen the strait.
Deterrence is like riding a bicycle, if you stop pedalling you fall over and lose it. (If anyone can figure out the two people who I'm paraphrasing/indirectly quoting here, I'll be very surprised). Iran needed to demonstrate some much needed deterrence after the deterrence failures of Operation True Promise 1 and 2. The 12 day war/Operation True Promise 3 did not do that. But Iran seems to have found a solution in utilising the short range missiles and drones in Operation True Promise 4 now, bombing the Gulf Arabs. It may not be much for some, but keeping the lights on by holding energy infrastructure in the Gulf Arab states at risk and thus deterring the US and Israel from destroying Iranian energy infrastructure is something Iran really needed. It's prevented what we saw in Serbia and Iraq when the USA did that there, and what we see in Ukraine when Russia lands successfull hits on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Narrator: This was, in fact, another Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sometimes I forget that the people around Trump aren't all just ignorant clowns, quite a lot of the people around him are bloodthirsty ghouls who jerk themselves off to the idea of all the children they are killing in the middle east.