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.
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.