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.
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.