Image is of a Quds Day march in Bandar Abbas, Iran.
It now seems likely that, very soon, the US and the Zionists will attempt to bomb Iran. Compared to the buildup to the Iraq War, the stated goals of such a move are being kept a little more generalized - some say the point is to overthrow the government for "humanitarian" purposes (others are more honest and want to partition Iran into a dozen powerless statelets). Some people instead say the point is to get rid of the ballistic missile program, which is synonymous with outright surrender, as no matter the deal, bombers would be en route within 10 minutes of the last batch being handed over.
Still others say that the goal is to destroy the Iranian nuclear program, which, as the thread title implies, is now in a bizarre propaganda superposition: it is apparently simultaneously true to the Trump administration that the US obliterated the nuclear facilities and set back Iran's nuclear program years, if not decades, but also that Iran is mere days away from finishing a nuke and a new round of bombing is urgently required. This obviously casts newfound doubts on how effective US weapons even are at penetrating Iran's underground facilities (though it doesn't necessarily mean they didn't breach them, as Iran was almost certainly moving nuclear material out of Fordow and other sites in the days before the Twelve Day War). The sheer quantity of US anti-air defense equipment they're shifting into position also casts doubts on whether Iran's air defense was mostly destroyed during that conflict, as those who assert that the Zionists had total air supremacy over Iran seem to be implying.
I'm not a military guy, and so I have no novel insights on how such a war is likely to go, nor do I feel confident predicting either side's victory. I'm looking at most of the same sources that you're all looking at. Some confidently boast of the total destruction of Iran's air defense within hours, allowing US planes to fly directly over Iranian cities and drop bombs en masse; others cast doubts on whether this will ever occur, and say that the US's limited supply of Tomahawk missiles is the only major firepower they will be able to safely unleash. Some say this war will last mere days before state collapse; others say months, maybe even years. I have no idea.
I do at least feel somewhat bolstered by the fact that Russia and China finally appear to be pouring in meaningful information and matériel to help Iran this time around, though of course, one can still debate whether it's enough. I feel like we are at the culmination of decades of war planning by both the US and Iran, and the result could have deep ramifications indeed.
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.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on the Zionists' 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
Can't find 100% confirmation but it appears Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz:
Iran's revolutionary guards tell ships passage through Strait of Hormuz 'not allowed', EU naval mission official says
the straits are not okay 😔
wait until they close the gay of hormuz
That's insanely funny
Now this is tagline material right here
I've never understood the hype around the Strait of Hormuz. It borders Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. And Saudi Arabia has another coastline, so they're kinda not too badly impacted? I am definitely missing something, would love for a comrade to shoot me a good link or text.
You'll understand when oil and gas prices go through the roof because 20% of the world's needed supply is no longer supplying.
If you need any fuel, I suggest going to get it right now. This is going to affect all of us.
But that's my question. I've never understood why that supply couldn't be rerouted to the other coastline. I get that a lot of shipping is running through there, I just don't understand the infrastructure that makes it so it can't run through at the other harbours the very same countries have.
Pipelines run straight to the coast and then fill there. Transporting it elsewhere is not impossible but is a massive logistical undertaking. We're talking about 20 million barrels of oil.... Per day
I gotta get outta map-game-brain. I understand why Nordstream 2 was a big deal, but suddenly I stop understanding lol. Thanks for explaining it in simple terms.
It's the sheer scale of things that's difficult to understand with gamer brain.
And I'm even a civil engineer lol, this is the kind of stuff I work with. Incredibly embarrassing.
To be fair, the map-games have only now started to try and incorporate this sort of logistics and there's an upper limit to what they can do.
In all honesty I don't even play them. I enjoy CK3 and Stellaris once in a while, but HOI IV was never for me. And I always end up cheating.
Never cared much for the very idea of a game set in a single war rather than a time period more broadly speaking, so I'm right with you there.
It's also so very deterministic and it reduces politics to a ridiculous fascimile. Not to mention geopolitics, diplomacy and so on. I do enjoy that they vindicate Stalin's purges though, that is funny.
i think on some level you kinda have to 'vindicate' everyone. its the ww2 battle royale game. the soviet union has to be able to win, as it historically did, and you need credible reasons for that. the timescale for HoI4 is miniscule. map games tend to be more deterministic depending on how early you are in the game, and with the framing of a ww2 game you'll always be close to that deterministic start position. you aren't gonna play a china that is 100 years removed from the civil war.
No I meant he's vindicated in the sense that if you don't carry out the purges you get a massive revolution, which is exactly why he did it, but ahistorical liberals claim he was paranoid and authoritarian and just doing it to seize power.
But by putting the revolution in the game, Stalin is proven right. He had to carry out the purges.
(In the perspective of an ahistorical liberal) It would sort of be like if you had an option to do the Holocaust as Nazi Germany, and if you don't do it a Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy makes you gay and black.
oh yeah i was sorta thinking on those terms as well but was struggling to put it into words. definitely true.
The same infrastructure just doesn't exist elsewhere in the region. You can't just magically re-route the pipelines. They would have to transport oil by truck hundreds of kilometers through the desert to ports that are not set up for those volumes of export anyway. This transport infrastructure takes years if not decades to build.
I'm sure there is an explanation but I too would like to know.
the hole oil infrastructure is pumping to the Docks in the Gulf , from the Oilfileds where it is loaded onto the tankers that then have to pass the hormuz straight.
and the Gas comes from the Gulf directly.
A quarter of world's oil passes through Hormuz and good portion of natural gas. Don't forget about UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iraq - they essentially lose the means to ship their oil out if the stait is closed
The UAE too? Damn okay then it all makes sense. Gotta re-up my geography remembrance. I kinda figured the tiny places like Qatar were basically just airbases and didn't hold any actual resources. Thanks for the explainer
20% of the world's petroleum passes through the Strait of Hormuz, to say nothing of refined products, and the Gulf in increasingly a global logistics hub where goods are shipped to the be redistributed globally.
And longer term those 20% couldn't be shipped from the other harbours the countries have outside of the strait? I figured it was just a situation of "we haven't moved our logistics hubs because it would be cumbersome and expensive and there's really no need." But it seems like there's something that makes it so that is impossible.
The UAE has a pipeline that go to Khor Fukkan and Fujairah that are basically for this exact situation, although the former is more of a container shipping hub, but the Iranians have shown before the have the capability to disable ships leaving that port.
Ah okay, so it's gonna have an impact, but long term something will either be set up or those places are going to burn too? Love to live on interesting times yay.
Very kind of Israel to wait until spring so the heating bill isn't hit as hard.
I doubt they have the ability to reroute much of the affected oil production through those pipelines. I'd have to check but I'd imagine at least the KSA ones operate at or near full capacity.
Neat! Wonder if I should make a How To post on shoplifting ahead of the coming price hikes this will cause.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=65504
Houthies closed the gates of grief as well.
Close the straight, destroy the economy, make the people happy.