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.
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.
Iran’s problem is the liberal reformers. They gained power for a real reason. That being forcing women to cover their hair and having morality police who religiously police all kinds of small sins and infractions is not what the people want. Unfortunately they had no understanding of imperialism, no understanding of how compromised their neighbors are and how hemmed in they are, no understanding of the west’s overarching strategic goals and strategy for their region and a false belief they could negotiate and compromise with them to something mutually beneficial.
I will once again recommend a skim of “The Grand Chessboard” by Brzezinski, it’s not just about the oil though that’s definitely a nice bonus and pretty important for dollar hegemony and sanctions power. It’s really about controlling this crossroads of land power. By occupying and destabilizing this one little strategic region you can block Asia (China), Russia, Africa, and Europe from ever uniting and locking the US out an ocean away via trade, defense, etc. It has been the great fear of the US to see this kind of integration and before them it was the fear of Britain who existed across a channel and separate from Europe and who like the US had a massive naval advantage that was totally undercut by the idea of land-power and overland trade, cooperation, military connections, and transport. It harkens back to the old British strategy used on India which is keep your enemies divided, play them off each other, and in the chaos you exert control and you have absolute power. This is true on both a micro and macro scale. The west seeks to do this in the middle east by sewing terrorists such as ISIS and other “moderate rebel” groups to keep certain areas in chaos (they also do this in Africa) but on a larger scale they seek to keep those aforementioned parts of the world Asia (China), Russia, Africa, Europe divided from one another, the chaos in this region preventing them from uniting.
It is a US hegemonic imperative to control the middle east/west Asia. It will be the last place they’ll let go IMO as they’re still running on old British empire playbook which says secure the oil but also secure this region to divide your enemies. Only once climate change sets in and makes the region unlivable and therefore denied to their enemies may they begin to fall back to some sort of climate fortress model.
Ideally there would be a synthesis of the hardliner approach to Israel and the West but the reformist approach to social issues, plus a willingness for, if not outright socialism (given Iran’s anti-communist history that seems totally implausible in the short-term) then at least a strengthened capitalist-based command economy. The reformists will destroy Iran by not sufficiently opposing Israel, while the hardliners will destroy Iran by being too repressive internally on issues that simply don’t need to be repressed even under an Israeli siege and propaganda warfare situation. But of course, it’s not as if the government merely dictates these opinions from on high, there must be many factions based on social and economic classes pulling one way or another, so even a hypothetical coup by a hypothetical “synthesis party” wouldn’t ameliorate the contradictions in the short term.
If the war continues then Iran might - might - manage to win anyway, but I’m really getting the impression that in Iran, the left arm doesn’t know what the right arm is doing. This goes beyond the standard messaging issues where you promise some overwhelming once-in-a-century response and then little happens; even Pezeshkian himself admitted a while ago that he doesn’t always know what’s going on.