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.
just do a revolution against america! is the “just seize leningrad” meme
You realize there’s a 0% chance of any revolution happening here in the next couple decades at least right? there’s absolutely 0 left or organized parties
whereas Iran has been promising to destroy Israel and liberate Palestine for decades, and set up an entire proxy network with this explicit purpose and then… just didn’t use it. They literally had a button on their desk to free palestine and they didn’t push it. We don’t have any such button over here.
“Khamenai, just press the Free Palestine button… we’re not going to press the do a revolution in the U.S.A. button though that’s unrealistic”
Another part you’re missing is that the war hasn’t ended yet, it has barely begun, the zionists wasted so much money on these 2 weeks and they didn’t get much.
no such button exists. the conditions in the USA are not ripe for revolution, there is no organized left. To even begin constructing the button would take years if not decades.
the war has been going on since oct 7th and Iran sat idly by as its network of allies was picked off one by one. The war didn’t just begin, it’s been going for years already
Our unripe conditions, their idle sitting
I really don’t get how you don’t see the vast ocean of difference between the agency of an individual and a nation state. It’s really a fundamental failure in your cognition, a flattening of things to such a comical extent that it destroys any coherency.
The state of Iran was one decision away from destroying Israel. The American left is not just one decision away from revolution. They are millions of decisions and actions away still. There was a good probability Iran could have made the right decision and done what they promised to do, they simply choked and let the moment pass and missed the chance. The probability of a revolution in the short term in America is nil. I’m conjecturing about things that could actually realistically happen, not wishcasting instant global victory.
When discussing history we talk about the movements of nations, not great men or individuals. So why are you like “why don’t YOU go change history?!?”. Because individuals don’t change history, movements and nations do. Iran has a nation capable of acting. We do not have a movement capable of acting. Understand yet?
I think we’re stuck in a loop here where people want to simultaneously spread hopium that Israel will be defeated in some long war of attrition yet when we ask China to materialy ask in this actual war of attrition by actualy hurting their material supplies the nationalists come screeching crying “hmmm acshually daddy Xi knows better”. Israel has sadly achieved the air superiority days ago while the pre-war hopium already thought would take weeks. At this point its either a nuke or an alliance, otherwise the current trajectory is only Iran slowly being completely being bombed to hell.
If Israel continues to get infinite money and continuous uninterrupted supplies and fuel to carry on the genocide there will be no long war. Fake Dollar signs on some computer screen are also probably the least valuable thing in this war literally too, after 2 wars and trillions nobody cares about that. The democrats that complained about the wars during the Bush years are also the biggest Zionists like Biden(who actualy approved Iraq like everyone else), like who cares about money.