this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
131 points (100.0% liked)

news

24645 readers
676 users here now

Welcome to c/news! We aim to foster a book-club type environment for discussion and critical analysis of the news. Our policy objectives are:

We ask community members to appreciate the uncertainty inherent in critical analysis of current events, the need to constantly learn, and take part in the community with humility. None of us are the One True Leftist, not even you, the reader.

Newcomm and Newsmega Rules:

The Hexbear Code of Conduct and Terms of Service apply here.

  1. Link titles: Please use informative link titles. Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed.

  2. Content warnings: Posts on the newscomm and top-level replies on the newsmega should use content warnings appropriately. Please be thoughtful about wording and triggers when describing awful things in post titles.

  3. Fake news: No fake news posts ever, including April 1st. Deliberate fake news posting is a bannable offense. If you mistakenly post fake news the mod team may ask you to delete/modify the post or we may delete it ourselves.

  4. Link sources: All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. If you are citing a Twitter post as news, please include the Xcancel.com (or another Nitter instance) or at least strip out identifier information from the twitter link. There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance, such as Libredirect or archive them as you would any other reactionary source.

  5. Archive sites: We highly encourage use of non-paywalled archive sites (i.e. archive.is, web.archive.org, ghostarchive.org) so that links are widely accessible to the community and so that reactionary sources don’t derive data/ad revenue from Hexbear users. If you see a link without an archive link, please archive it yourself and add it to the thread, ask the OP to fix it, or report to mods. Including text of articles in threads is welcome.

  6. Low effort material: Avoid memes/jokes/shitposts in newscomm posts and top-level replies to the newsmega. This kind of content is OK in post replies and in newsmega sub-threads. We encourage the community to balance their contribution of low effort material with effort posts, links to real news/analysis, and meaningful engagement with material posted in the community.

  7. American politics: Discussion and effort posts on the (potential) material impacts of American electoral politics is welcome, but the never-ending circus of American Politics© Brought to You by Mountain Dew™ is not welcome. This refers to polling, pundit reactions, electoral horse races, rumors of who might run, etc.

  8. Electoralism: Please try to avoid struggle sessions about the value of voting/taking part in the electoral system in the West. c/electoralism is right over there.

  9. AI Slop: Don't post AI generated content. Posts about AI race/chip wars/data centers are fine.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like "in Minecraft") and comments containing it will be removed.

Image is of the Minab Girls' School in Iran, which was attacked by Western forces who killed (as of the time of writing this) nearly 200 people, including many schoolgirls.


I have a longer statement below in spoiler tags, but for those who just want to get into the megathread itself, the very short version of my take is: things are going about as well as they realistically could go for Iran as of me writing this on March 2nd; the US and Zionists have clearly misplayed their hand; there's so much propaganda it's hard to get a good perspective of the overall conflict; I think if Iran is still fighting on at approximately the same pace as the end of this week then things are looking VERY bad for the West; I am unsure what the ultimate result of this conflict will be now that the new crop of Iranian leadership are in charge after Khamenei's assassination but am hopeful that anti-American sentiment has been yet further cemented and those in Iran who seek repproachment with the West will be further discredited in favor of those who wish to look East.

My Idle RamblingsAs we are now past the initial 48 hours of the war, what can be said with confidence is that the Iran of today is in a considerably more organized position than they were during the Twelve Days War, as the initial delay on meaningfully responding to enemy attacks was brought from something like 10 hours to about 1 hour. Unfortunately, given the not-insignificant number of Iranian top figures killed, Iran still has considerable opsec problems; whatever the hell Sinwar was doing to stay alive for over a year in the most bombed territory on the planet obviously hasn't reached Iran yet. However, to Iran's credit, the recovery was fast and effective, Khamenei had already drawn up detailed plans for the succession chain in the event of his death, and the new figures were clearly in position to take control of the situation within the hour. The name of the game appears to be greater decentralization of the military, making Zionist narratives about "decapitation" essentially meaningless - the hydra has a thousand heads.

This time around, there are fewer direct critiques to level at Russia and China. In an abstract sense, they could certainly "do more" (Xi, donate one million Chinese drones and let Iran and Yemen blot out the sun!), but to be geopolitically serious, it appears that the Twelve Days War delivered a swift kick up the ass of both Iran and China to start working more closely together, and so Iran now has access to Chinese intelligence and satellite tools, has been receiving certain military equipment like much better radars, and, one hopes, will provide greater economic assistance during and after this war's conclusion.

The overall impacts of the US's and Zionists' strikes on Iran, and vice versa, have been very hard to assess due to the customary tsunami of misinformation and comical exaggerations. Clearly, the most sensational claims - that Western aircraft feel safe enough to fly directly over Iranian territory (let alone that they have air superiority, let alone that they have air supremacy); that Iran's leadership have been killed in meaningful numbers; that Iran is on the verge of collapse or giving in; that Western losses are insignificant; that things are going well or better than expected; etc, are obviously for the general population and peanut gallery, and the situation looks very different from within the halls of power. Nonetheless, stitching every individual missile/drone strike together from both sides into a cohesive picture from which we can draw conclusions has always been a major challenge of present-day warfare, and is certainly challenging here. What can be generally gathered is that Iran does not seem to fear striking Occupied Palestine or American bases directly and with pretty significant firepower, but either is deliberately not focussing on the fleet or does not have the capability to focus on it, leaving American warships intact. And from the highest perspective, it's unclear whether Iran is only beginning a long term war of attrition, or whether they hope to not overly anger the US and Zionists so that an offramp later is possible, or indeed, that the West is succeeding in attriting Iran's offensive capabilities faster than Iran can attrit the West's (or a mixture of all three).

The assassination of Khamenei and other figures is a symbolic victory for the West, as he was one of the last remaining pre-October 7th Resistance leaders alive or in power. Reports are that he stayed at his compound despite being advised in the days before the attack that he should leave, knowing that he would likely very soon die, as he did not want to flee to Russia or hide in bunkers. It's currently unclear to me how impactful his death will be in the end. On the one hand, it is obvious to every serious analyst that his death will not negatively impact Iran's military operations, nor will it lead to regime change in the short or medium term - Iran's government is not a strongman regime (few governments truly are), and the current government is both very durable and has very widespread legitimacy. His replacements and subordinates are already in charge, and from what I can tell, effectively were in charge long before his death.

On the other hand, succession is a bit of a risky process for nations today, in the short and long term. If whoever is left as his replacement at the end of this war - I cannot safely assume it will be Khamenei's immediate replacement in the current environment of Western strikes - ultimately leans even a little more reformist and towards reproachment with the West than Khamenei did, then this whole war may be worth it to the West regardless of the materiel losses. Alternatively, if this war causes a permanent shift away from repproachment and genuine, sustained, and hard-to-repair damage to America's foothold in the Middle East as well as the attrition of most of the US's interceptor missiles, we may indeed be looking at a region soon to be free of Zionist designs. It is much too early for me to distinguish which path we are on.


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.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.


you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] SickSemper@hexbear.net 39 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

Headlines you definitely want to read 2 days into a war

Exclusive: Defense executives plan to meet at White House as strikes on Iran diminish stockpiles

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/defense-executives-plan-meet-white-house-strikes-iran-diminish-stockpiles-2026-03-04/

The White House meeting comes as Deputy ‌Defense ⁠Secretary Steve Feinberg has been leading Pentagon work in recent days on a supplemental budget request of around $50 billion that could be released as soon as Friday, one of the people said. The new money would pay for replacing the weapons used in recent conflicts including those in the Middle East.

[–] CoolerOpposide@hexbear.net 36 points 2 days ago (2 children)

All this fucking money and they still need more? Jesus fucking Christ that’s budget bloat

[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 28 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's so unimaginably corrupt. I'm kind of thankful, imagine how much more brutal the US military would be if they actually made use of their full budget instead of using it as a money laundering scheme.

[–] oliveoil@hexbear.net 22 points 2 days ago

They'd've actually won. But this flaw is a consequence of capitalism.

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 24 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Yes, because the Biden administration didn't budget for any interceptors, for some reason. I'm not joking.

[–] somename@hexbear.net 36 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

They can budget all they want. It doesn't make factories and productive capacity actually increase meaningfully.

America is allergic to state run, nationalized industries, and that's what you need to eliminate the graft, and actually produce the the things the military needs. Half the economy is floated by obscene corruption in the military industrial sphere.

[–] RobnHood@hexbear.net 26 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[–] Boise_Idaho@hexbear.net 25 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The virgin rhyming JDPON Don vs the chad alliterating JDPON Joe

[–] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 27 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] Leon_Grotsky@hexbear.net 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

2028 election: The Ogre Rises

Can’t wait for president John fetterman

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 22 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

He really was with his Ukraine policy. The US gave Ukraine ATACMS ballistic missiles, but then didn't allow them to hit all the Russian fighter jets on the ground in Russian territory, well within range and unprotected. Because they were in Russia, and he needed to "manage escalation". Once he allowed Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with US weapons anyways years later (so much for "escalation management"), Russia had moved all their fighter jets out of range and constructed aircraft shelters.

Incredible stuff.

[–] oliveoil@hexbear.net 22 points 2 days ago

$50 bill on a $1.5 trill budget?

50 / 1.500 = 3,33%

Such a small percentage meant to bring into existence new equipment for this conflict in a timeframe of... -4 days.

[–] joaomarrom@hexbear.net 16 points 2 days ago

Quis shakedowniet ipsos shakedownies?

I mean, I can see no better time to ask for a raise. Good on them, respect the hustle. Bleed them dry.

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 15 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

The main worry would be ballistic missile interceptors (SM-3, SM-6, THAAD, PATRIOT PAC 3 MSE), but those should be sufficient vs Iran. It will hit the stockpiles heavily though, and Arab Gulf allies will also want to refill. The Trump administration has already struck agreements to increase production by 300-400% over the next 4-5 years with Lockheed Martin and Raytheon (Lockheed Martin sucked up instantly to Trump, Raytheon caved after Trump called them out in a Truth Social post, yes that's actually what happened, absurd world). The meeting will probably be about accelerating those argeemets to "re-arm for deterrence vs China".

Actual annual production figures are currently:

SM-6: 125.
PAC-3 MSE: 620.
Talon THAAD : 96.
SM-3: around 60, between all variants.

[–] SickSemper@hexbear.net 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Do we have numbers on current interceptor stocks? I assume it's not public info

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

It is public information, but you would have to combine Gulf Arab states+US current stockpile, by system, interceptor variant, etc. Would be a lot of research.

Israeli numbers aren't public.

[–] SickSemper@hexbear.net 10 points 2 days ago

Gotcha, thanks!

[–] skeletorsass@hexbear.net 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Agree is easy. May be very hard to increase. Radar seeker need a lot of material that US do not have very much. Chip making as well very slow to increase.

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

The main bottleneck on Raytheons side is actually some of the solid rocket motors on SM-3 and SM-6, there was a very good article on that posted here. It's probably why they were hesitant to agree. Lockheed Martin seem a lot more confident though, and are already slightly ahead of schedule on PAC-3 MSE (by 20 rounds), which is probably why they're confident.

[–] skeletorsass@hexbear.net 7 points 2 days ago

Did not know this. Even worse! Very complex to scale.

[–] Dort_Owl@hexbear.net 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Stockpiles are exsaused after two days? How far ahead did they plan this?

[–] TerminalEncounter@hexbear.net 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think literally they thought it would be a weekend series of strikes and then done

[–] Dort_Owl@hexbear.net 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But surely they account for if things don't go as planned.

Right?

[–] NinaPasadena@hexbear.net 13 points 2 days ago

Ever heard of just in time logistics

Anyway no they didn't