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.
Genuinely what calculus went into operation Epic Fortnite Chungus that made the US decide it was a good idea? They ignored every single war game scenario where Iran regularly fucks them up with drone and missile swarms to the point that the teams representing Iran are given special rules against using obviously plausible Iranian strategies to allow the U.S. to win. Did they seriously think a decapitation strike on an 80 year old man would topple a nation like Iran?
Now there’s a near constant barrage of not just missiles, but slow ass Shaheds turning US bases into cinders? This is so fucking funny. Where is the “superior” air defense? Iran hasn’t even brought out the big guns yet.
The PRC better have finished taking notes and started preparing its reunification with Taipei. The U.S. is completely ineffectual against a regional power everybody assumed it dwarfed immensely. At this point you’d have to imagine that the PRC would face essentially zero challenge to achieving its regional goals
They took Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, an 86 year old cancer survivor who had his side blown off with an explosive 30 years ago...
...an turned him into the history's first ayatollah martyr during Ramadan, during an especially holy day, during an especially holy morning, at the same historical day as the ancient holy prophet Ali...
...and martyred his blond blue-eyed infant granddaughter, as a country that values white supremacy and elevates white martyrs like Renee Good, Aaron Bushnell, etc and ignores POC ones.
It’s honestly bafflingly stupid. Imagine killing the pope on easter weekend.
i was thinking about that last night, and i couldn't decide whether "killing the pope on easter" or "killing trump on the 4th of july" was the more apt burgerbrain analogue
maybe killing trump on christmas, actually
They really don't understand the politics of the shia community specifically, they have made Ayatollah Khameni a heroic martyr for the people of Iran.
Can you clarify the significance, beyond Ramadan itself. What same historic day as Ali? His date of death seems to be January. Sorry, I am not super up on my Islamic calendar
I think the calculus was "we thought we had until 2028 before China overtakes us but it turns out if we don't go all in now we will lose our shot forever"
Nazis in 1944 type shit
This is such an old-school Matt Christman riff
I sure do hope so. I hope they have plenty of launchers. It would suck if too many get taken out and then the big missiles are just sitting there.
Fairly certain they’ve either launched only a handful of hypersonic missiles so far or none at all.
I don’t see a Wholesome Keanu 100 off-ramp for the US anywhere either way. They will simply not subdue Iran after this
I haven't seen confirmation that they've launched ANY. Frankly, I think they're either aiming for a diplomatic end that doesn't exhaust their defensive capabilities, hoping that other powers pitch in, or at least hoping this wakes up the region that the US is not a friend and will not actually fulfill their end of bargains and treaties.
I haven’t seen any confirmation they have either, but rampant rumors they have. I personally doubt they have so I’ll add that into my statement
it's been awesome seeing Iran's response, and I am hopeful they can continue their fight, which they are fighting on behalf of all of humanity
but to be fair, i'm worried for what we're not seeing: the continued barbarism of the imperialist pigs who started this war by killing over 100 schoolgirls, who have claimed to hit over 1000 more targets since that massacre, and who now claim to have air superiority over Iran
The US bases close to Iran that are getting hit are mostly evacuated, the US is launching attacks from Israel, Jordan, support aircraft in Saudi Arabia, and their aircraft carriers more than 800km away. Even if Iran were to flatten every US base close by, it would not stop the attacks on Iran, the calculus from a purely military point of view, is that long range kill chains are difficult and Iran can't hit US forces in Jordan, Israel, and their aircraft carriers, and to stay out of range of Iran's accurate short range missiles and drones. If the bases close by get hit, that's inevitable and why the US isn't using them in the first place to host fighters. That's the military thinking, they're prepared to take damage to the bases if it means that they can strike Iran.
Do you have any reliable info on the attempt to hit a carrier today? Would be interested to know what they tried to do.
Iran said that they fired 4 anti ship ballistic missiles, and then a few hours later, 4 anti ship cruise missiles, at the USS Abraham Lincoln. The attacks likely failed to achieve direct hits on the aircraft carrier, as Iran themselves did not claim any hits on the carrier. They said it repositioned to the south east Indian ocean, which is fairly ambiguous.
Thanks. Are we ever likely to find out how close they got/whether the missiles were intercepted?
Very unlikely to know the truth until well after the war is over.
For example, an article cake out this month about how Yemen almost shot down an F-16, from a battle that took place almost a year ago
Is the thing about the war games true? Because what the fuck is the point of having the war games at all if you have to give a handicap?? There were rumours that the generals were against the action so that does track
It's a misunderstanding, out of date, and not really applicable to this situation. But it's clear from the 12 day war that Iran is fully capable of fucking Israel up
Just the millennium challenge is out of date. They still do plan for scenarios like this regularly in the military and DO give out handicaps
american exceptionalism dogma
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
First time I've heard of this, thanks. Honestly pathetic
Yes, they absolutely do think this. They have imbibed the propaganda, not understanding that it was merely a fiction meant only for the proles. They truly believe that countries are run by individuals, not systems. That's why the President is now an untouchable God-King.
breht from revleft floated the idea that the zios have some Epstein-related dirt on Trump they used to force his hand
no proof but it's plausible I guess
Considering that no one in the u.s. is being punished for epstein related stuff it doesnt make much sense. We KNOW what trump did/does and nothings happened.
aren't there a lot more files + so many of them were redacted by people who basically work for him? I would expect there to be much more heinous stuff in there that we haven't seen tbh
I would also say msm did not report really on how heavily Trump is in the files. the zios could make sure everyone knows I guess?
The ultimate question is whether anyone with power will act on whatever it is. Will congress take him out? The military? The CIA? If not, then it's only his pride on the line. Doesnt mattwr how many regular people hate him
yeah I don't think anyone with power would be removing him. I think it'd be more to do with him avoiding getting humiliated by whatever is released, like photos or maybe even videos
Trump doesnt give a single fuck, the entire world knows what he is already
house style is "Operation Epstein Fury", fyi
They're still high off their success in Venezuela. Just like how the Nazis thought the SU would collapse overnight. It happened with France, so these subhuman commie Slavs would put up even less of a fight. And then it turned out the Red Army spend more time defending a house than the French army did for their entire country.