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.
Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Nasirzadeh arrived in China hours ago
“Given the urgent and urgent need for ground-based and air-based air defense, it is hoped that the authorities will make good use of the capacity created (according to some unofficial sources, a proposal from China) to fill these gaps.”
https://t.me/partisan2015/82958
Seems like Iran could be patching up the holes
They need to purge their IT infrastructure of intel and windows. I don’t know what kind of demonic backdoor stuxnet-like horseshit the US-Israel has built into these devices, but it’s like Iran is trying to fight a cyberwar with unpatched windows 98 installs or something.
Between the Mossad Hunt and the China Visit, I have faith in the regime’s ability to adapt with haste. Hopefully this has put a fire under their collective ass
Hopefully they realize that they are north Korea and not Turkey
They need a Persian fork of RedStarOS.
They already have one, it’s called Zamin OS.
werent even a lot of irgc and government people using non chinese phones and apps for communication. Like what the fuck are we doing
They need the DPRK OS
This is by far the most important thing Iran should be doing (outside of developing nukes, obviously). They need to buy every single air defense platform they can get their hands on, no matter the price. Glad to see there’s some urgency there. If China has any sense at all, they’ll offer them to Iran for something close to free so long as they share all the data of performance with them. It won’t be long before those defense platforms are pitted against Israel’s and the United States’ most advanced jets.
Iran also needs to start building up an air force. A few SU-35s from Russia isn’t going to cut it. They should look to what Pakistan did, and buy up a load of J-10s from the Chinese. It’s a fourth gen fighter, but far better than what Iran is currently fielding, which is effectively not an air force at all. It would be great if they could purchase some J-35 (a fifth gen stealth fighter available for export by the Chinese, as Pakistan’s got an order for a few dozen), but I’m not sure if China would sell them to Iran just yet.
Just to give you an idea of how woeful the Iranian air force is, their fighter jets primarily consist of the J-7, a Chinese built copy of the MiG-21 (from 1959), a few dozen F-14s (from the '70s), and some F-4s and F-5s (also American fighters from the 60s). They apparently finalized an order to purchase some Su-35s from Russia in 2023, and confirmed that the order is taking place in 2025, and they have the jet trainers, but we don’t know how many they bought and they’re not in service. This would be huge, because the Su-35 is a modern fourth gen fighter platform that has performed well in Ukraine. It’s still a fourth gen fighter, so still gets shot down by Patriot batteries, but it can at least hold its own and would provide a significant boost to Iran’s air force. They could at least fly them without having them immediately destroyed by the IDF, and would be able to run defensive sorties to shoot down Israeli drones and protect Iranian airspace.
Iran needs to do some purges cause i doupt China wants to give them modern systems for them to get blown up by a Mossad agent firing rpgs from neighbouring parking lot. It also needs to drop any tech transfer requirements for deals and actualy fastrack an actual intergration with China economicaly and into their “sphere”. Last thing china needs is to make an effort to arm iran and them some dumbass reformist wing gaining prominence in 5-10 years looking to turn west
This telegram (I believe unofficially state affiliated) also debunked a conspiracy theory that Iran can’t buy Chinese jets because they’re Israeli, so could indicate they intend to go this route. Between Pakistan and Iran, China’s hardware is racking up dubs without fighting a single war
full text
🔹Now that we are talking about China, it is necessary to address a big lie that only exists in the Telegram space and some channels. That the electronics, avionics, and radars of Chinese fighters, especially the J-10, are not reliable because they are Israeli and should not be bought!. Endless satire on Iran’s military virtual pages.
🔹Note that the J-10A fighter, the initial model of this family, was produced in China by purchasing the production rights and transferring the technology of the Israeli Lavi multi-role fighter, and China’s first steps in producing the J-10 went back three decades to 1998. But it was not a completely Israeli or even half-Israeli fighter, but was produced in China.
🔹The subsequent models, the J-10B and J-10C, which are completely indigenous to China in all parts of the fuselage, engine, radar, electronics, avionics, weapons, and computers, are completely different from the A model and have no connection to each other.
P.S.: These stories and rumors that have taken root in the minds of military news enthusiasts and, unfortunately, some of our military commanders, that this is why we should not buy fighter jets from China, have no basis whatsoever!
In my opinion, it’s more important than building a nuke.
Guess that makes sense. Can’t launch nukes if you can defend your own airspace in the first place.
Can Iran afford all of this though? Maybe they can pay in oil?
If China’s smart they’ll give some heavy discounts.
When you’re off to China to do some shopping.
Dear god please. HQ-19, HQ-9s with kinetic interceptors, HQ-22, J-10C or JF-17 block 3, J-35s. They need it all and they need it now. HQ-19 and kinetic interceptors are important to defend against the long range Israeli air launched ballistic missiles, which took out Iranian over the horizon radars and S-300PMU-2 fire control radars. Ballistic missile defence is very important, otherwise the key anti aircraft systems become sitting ducks for the Israeli air launched ballistic missiles.
I have read from some PLA watchers that last time after the UN arms embargo ended and wasnt renewed deals with China werent made for a couple of reason. Yeah China being cautious about gulf states, israel and america freaking out was a reason (it was what 2019/2020?) but equaly important is that Iran, beyond being very unenthusiastic and flip floppy about joining sides and falling into chinas sphere of influence and also being difficult with the payment system or other possible geopolitical stuff they could offer China, they really wanted to attach Tech Transfer and co-production stuff to the deals. Also they didnt want to give air defense and air force built up a priority resources wise compared to the money and focus purring to missile program, nuclear program and proxis founding. Plus this was pre Ukraine war and they drifted towards Russian systems and deals.
Idk what China is open to giving them but assuming Iran acts with the desperation, commitment and urgency its position requires and ditch some of their delusions and offer and fasttrack some stuff in non military apsects im sure they can get some stuff.
They need to this. They need to push on all fronts. Emotional, logical, economical, geopolitical.
I’m honestly not sure how wise it is for China to give Iran top of the line air defense at this point. I think they have structural deficiencies in their government, are deeply compromised by Mossad and generally just unstable. Put those together and if the US really wants to go in on them they’ll still knock them down. Add in that the US would want desperately to study Chinese air defenses including just attacking and defending against them for their coming war with China to give them much needed intel and ways to disable, overcome, etc those and the disadvantage it could present to China in that coming war which many seem to think is happening within about 5 years and it becomes a big strategic question mark.
Obviously if they KNEW for a fact that giving Iran these would prevent the zionists and US from overthrowing them and would keep the belt and road open and Iran as a vital link and outpost for Russia/China free of imperialist rule or descent into civil war then it would be a worthy sacrifice to let the US get knowledge on these systems from engaging them and studying them and perhaps even getting close to them with Mossad infiltrators. But not knowing that, knowing how divided Iran is between the hardliners who refuse to compromise on social and domestic issues and the liberals who are such suckers and the inability for them to form any kind of coalition that lets the Iranian people have it both ways (hardline religious foreign policy, progressive reformist domestic policies) there’s just so many chances for Iran to crumble that China should think long and hard on this unless they have some truly older (but still much better than s-300) systems they can sell them which won’t reveal their cutting edge secrets. Russia I think may be in a better position here to sell them something better than s-300 that still isn’t as advanced as the s-500 and doesn’t give away any secret sauce if captured or studied up close by a Mossad specialist. I mean they sold s-400 to Turkey which is a NATO state and unless they had round the clock Russian guards on those you know NATO studied them so maybe even s-400 could be sold and they could replace their own remaining s-400 with new production s-500 and s-600 systems to have a win-win.
If only there was a political tradition that was both fiercely anti-imperialist and socially progressive.
Yeah too bad they murdered the communists. Almost like we’re a threat to their rule and we have to be critical in our support for a place like Iran that despite having a revolution also did the exact kind of dirty work the west would have done (mass killings of communists) to cement their own power.
It’s interesting to contrast this to Russia where the successes of the Soviet era are so great they cannot be denied so there is some allowed historical veneration for the communist state and symbols despite the best attempts of the traitorous capitalist leadership there to pry the people away from that and fill their heads with “traditionalist” reactionary nonsense. And part of that legacy is a certain amount of understanding (perverted through reactionary/liberal thinking of course) of imperialism. I expect Russia could end up in the same place in 20 years though. We’ve already seen this situation in many places where the progressive forces against genuinely backwards and reactionary thinking are co-opted (often from very early on) by western intelligence and interests. Which is why of course the US had its regime media and intelligence spreading that kind of stuff which is something domestic reactionaries don’t understand. Or more importantly after the success of naked fascism in Ukraine and the failure of progressive NATO propagandists to bring the global south onboard against Russia they’ve decided that they’d rather just push the naked reaction angle.
I think i would have to become a eunuch the way footage of an IRIAF J-35 blasting apart an F-35 with a license-made PL-16 (designated Haniyeh-1) over Tabriz would send me into a permament state of orgasm.
I’d be the first Hexbear user put to death by the horny police via an EOD bot.
how much would a sufficient amount of that cost and how long would it take to setup and train users
At least 6 months. The cost will be billions of US dollars, at minimum. Maybe China can cut a deal involving some local production and development, plenty of smart Iranian scientists motivated to defend the nation. Best time to do this was after the October Israeli attack last year when the flaws in the Iranian air defence network against air launched ballistic missiles were exposed, second best time is now. It will take time, but what’s the alternative, Iran exists in a permanently weakened state, vulnerable to Israeli airstrikes? Either China steps up and Iran gets serious (fire reformists, fire corrupt officials and fire officials trying to cover up the damage) simultaneously, or that’s the alternative.
It’s a long shot, but it’s the only option available now.
Sorta makes sense given Russia’s bad salesmanship and the apparent success of Chinese systems in the India-Pakistan skirmishes last month.
Russia also doesn’t have a lot of extra AD systems and production capacity right now, most are tied up in active combat
True that. Better to buy from the people not actively using theirs
Yeah buying the SU-35 was such a dumb decision in retrospect. Seemed to only be finalised once Iran was certain that Russia not only couldn’t build any, but also that any they could build would be immediately be kept for replacing their own losses.
S-400 is currently a better anti aircraft system, and better anti ballistic system when equipped with the kinetic interceptors (extremely important) than HQ-9. It’s why China bought some. But China has systems like the HQ-19, a THAAD equivalent, which are much better than the S-500 which currently exists. That’s a very important niche capability (endo exo atmospheric gap against ballistic missiles) where Russia is falling behind compared to China and the USA. Russia has the S-300V series of systems though for many decades (terminal intercept of ballistic targets with large area effect blast fragmentation warheads, 150kg), and China’s equivalent, the HQ-29, photos have only emerged recently. So Russia is still better there, for now. Israeli use of the Arrow 2 shows that this class of terminal interceptors is still relevant, even in the age of kinetic interceptors. You just need a massive warhead, 150kg.
Also as Z poster said, Russia doesn’t have any spare equipment currently, they’re at war.
Good at least if it makes the stupid ass Russian grifters stop pushing conspiracy nonsense about how Iran allowed it to happen or denying Israel-US achieved air superiority. Yeah no shit they allowed it to happen so much Iran is running straight to China as a result literaly just days after(as they should).
Turns out if it was to buy shit, it’s not visible. The Russian defense minister was also present.
“On Wednesday, Beijing will convene a meeting of defense ministers of SCO member nations.”
https://apnews.com/article/china-iran-israel-geopolitics-oil-a66b5fe05670980c544662bb633e6fe3
Iran’s Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh arrived in China for his first known overseas trip since the war with Israel began.
Nasirzadeh is attending a meeting of defense ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states in the eastern city of Qingdao, according to a social media account affiliated with state broadcaster China Central Television. The gathering on Wednesday and Thursday is being hosted by China’s Defense Minister Dong Jun.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-06-25/iran-s-defense-minister-visits-china-in-his-first-trip-since-war