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.
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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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Ken Klippenstein believes a ground invasion in Iran isn't happening.
https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/is-a-ground-war-with-iran-imminent
Edit: Guess we'll see how well this article ages a week from now.
I think that if the US military is bothering to do a half-assed buildup and go up the escalation ladder by signaling an invasion, there isn't much point in not going all the way. You're staking your credibility, wearing assets and troops, leaving yourself vulnerable on many theatres, to do a bluff?
Perhaps we won't get mission impossible style bs, but I'm guessing we're getting something.
When the US was building up to bomb Iran on the 28th people were calling it a bluff.
Why would today be any different?
So far every Trump buildup has turned into action. Exactly what or what scale is unpredictable, but until proven wrong we have to assume this will be boots in the ground somewhere.
It is very funny that we seem to have this conversation every time Trump threatens to do something. When it comes to the military, he never bluffs. Once the assets start moving, it's gonna happen. Just a matter, as you said, of scale and of when.
Yeah, kinda strange to bluff an enemy, after having launched a war against them.
Right? Are we gonna do this again? You dont amass forces for no reason. Its like when Russia started their SMO, everyone was like wow I cant believe they did it. Why wouldnt they? You dont stage troops for no reason. If amerika is building forces in the region, they plan on using them.
I agree fundamentally with you but wasn't the whole deal with Russia that they were regularly performing large maneuvers on the border for years at that point? The final buildup was bigger than usual but not so much bigger that it was a forgone conclusion.
Iirc they were doing some military drills on the border but then they just started massing troops more and more and everyone was like, its just another drill, but it was more troops than ever. The drills were practice for the real thing. The build up became obvious, mostly in hindsight but still, you dont mass troops for no reason.
But us planers believe they are winning because they have all the acronyms. So they can't be defeated.
Maybe the gamble is that if the US just do a bunch of huffing and puffing while still doing their (largely failing) military doctrine, eventually Iran will run out of non-Israeli targets and chill. Then the US declares victory despite material losses.
Am I crazy or has marmite referenced some of these dudes on the way to the region
Also funny was him basically calling the troops scared to be deployed delusional
Well C-17s are flying out of their home bases in the continental USA to the Middle East. That's the sign that they're potentially being deployed.
I thought I saw a post earlier about delta/seals and SF flight groups deploying in theatre, or en route, likely from marmite (the air focus)
It feels way more probable that they’re planning some sort of symbolic SF strike (maybe to “get the uranium”) and the marines and 82nd are being brought closer in to be there in case of emergency or QRF. The idea of bringing SF into Natanz, digging up uranium (if it’s even there, perhaps they can remote sense somehow) and then exfilling seems hardly plausible, but I just cant think of a meaningful thing they can do with a group like that that would give them a good symbolic reason to claim “victory” and slink away beyond something like this.
Storming either of those islands has never made much sense to me—the fuck do you do once you’ve taken it? you’ll be getting hit with everything nonstop and it doesn’t feel like it would meaningfully interdict Iran’s ability to exert control over the strait.
Basically they can’t control the strait with SF insertions, nor can they topple Iran’s govt and make the country as a whole cease its strikes against the aggressors. They could do a highly symbolic and possibly disastrous thing that will let them claim they have achieved their goal (granted they’ve stated 30 different ones) and retreat with face. Of course it would really be the empire losing and being kicked out of the Middle East mostly, but this would provide some cover for that wound. It’s meaningless though, they enriched uranium once they can certainly do it again and there’s almost no chance they’d actually get any of it. Not to mention unless it’s completely faked, ie they drop some bombsand have SF beardos pretend to dig something up in a remote part of Jordan, it feels like there’s almost no way it would work out.
Anyway basically I can’t really imagine what they’re thinking to do, because none of it makes much sense to me militarily, but also, that doesn’t seem to be a criteria for them when deciding go/no go on ideas so who knows…
Could be the uranium (very hard ask). Could be kidnapping some high ranking Iranian leader figure(s) to "face trial" in the US which they'd parade around to the media like Maduro.
Yeah ok I was wondering about this—this seems much more possible, but I’m not sure if it would be enough to cover their retreat… but as you say, uranium extraction is almost certainly going to fail spectacularly.
Maybe if they went in and bagged khomeini, that would have symbolic power… but boy that wouldn’t improve US assets life span in the middle each much…
Approximately 3 years ago, Ukrainians on snake Island got wiped by the Russians. Immediately after seeing how easy it was to wipe the Ukrainians from this bullshit rock with nationalistic/symbolic but little to no strategic value, the Russians then put troops on snake Island and were wiped themselves over the following months. After that, Ukrainians put troops on the island again and got bombed for their trouble.
Once their blood is up, "warfighters" struggle to learn obvious lessons.