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 Iranian missiles in one of their many fortified underground facilities. I sincerely hope this isn't AI generated, because I'm very wary of posting footage of explosions or combat and having it later turn out to be fake.
Now that the initial shock of the war's beginning is over and there's a meaningful dataset to analyze, the takes from the many hundreds of Geopolitics Understanders are flying in, with predictably extreme variance about how long they predict this war to last and who will ultimately be the victor - and, indeed, what victory even looks like for either side. There are some who are already toasting to their side's victory, but most serious analysts seem to believe that if there isn't any negotiations, and it's just attrition to the death, then it's gonna be a long war (months or even years), and then, depending on the analyst, either the US or Iran then concedes defeat.
All of these takes are being informed by quite possibly the worst information environment yet conceived by humanity. There's the usual stuff: falsehoods, lying by omission, wild exaggerations, state propaganda, doctored videos, masses of bots boosting certain narratives, etc - but now also easily accessible AI which creates images and videos that can be quite convincing unless further inspected by tools online, and people claiming that some non-AI videos were made with AI. On top of all of that, censorship across the Middle East is now in full effect, spawning arguments about whether Iran's strikes have actually decreased in intensity (and if they have, then why), or if we just aren't seeing them as much on social media anymore. Scant footage here and there confirms that strikes are still happening, but I suspect that most of the evidence of further damage to Western facilities will either be satellite imagery or indirect indicators like rescue crews gathering in certain areas, as well as the he-said-she-said of official statements by either side. Given the West's utter lack of reliability with reporting... well, pretty much everything, but especially the Ukraine War, I know which side I'm predisposed to believe, but obviously Iran's government generally isn't going to report successful strikes by Western forces for a myriad reasons.
However, the military conflict is being gradually eclipsed in importance by the growing likelihood of a global economic crisis of massive proportions. A very large proportion of the fuel that keeps the world running is now not moving, and may remain so for weeks or months. Some are even predicting that 2026 will be the year of the biggest energy crisis in world history, dwarfing the crisis of 1973, as countries around the world begin to restrict oil and gas exports and tap into limited reserves. In such a situation, Iran clearly holds all the cards, because even if the US eventually achieves air supremacy, it is still relatively trivial to fire cheap drones en masse at tankers in the strait and at oil facilities throughout the Gulf. Assuming that Iran and the US do not negotiate, then even if the US eventually somehow wins and can reopen the strait within a few months, the global economic and political situation may be so degraded that the victory will be pyrrhic.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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.
lmao what is all this talk about boots on the ground supposed to amount to?
Obviously invading Iran with anything reassembling an army is logistically impossible, so what's the plan, are they gonna airdrop a couple special forces companies and storm a border town (or more likely a border VILLAGE) and then watch them be massacred by drones, artillery and the Iranian veterans of the Syrian war?
Seems to me this boots-talk is sacrificial in nature for the sake of shifting public opinion, I think these motherfuckers are completely Zelensky brained
They're probably going to try seize/capture the 400+kg of highly enriched uranium, enriched to 60% and buried deep in the mountains of Isfahan. It's like WMDs in Iraq all over again, though at least this time something exists to recover (in theory).
This isn't Venezuela, if they try it the helicopters will be shot down in route and the remaining force pinned down on site and forced to surrender or massacred
Iran's military strength lies in its ground forces, a million Iraqi soldiers were sent back to WW1 conditions by the Iranian army during its weakest moment in the last century
A mere company of US special forces are going to be annihilated
How do they get underground quickly enough to get in and then get it out after the bombing they already did and Iran subsequently adding more dirt on top? Are they going to bomb holes into the ground? there's no way they could dig it in a reasonable amount of time, are they just relying on air superiority to keep the area of Isfahan under control for...multiple days?
Who knows. But Isfahan's bunker is too deep for the 30 000lb convenienional GBU-57 MOP bunker busters to penetrate (the US would've done that already), and probably to deep for tactical nuclear weapons. The US is not going to use their special B-61 400kt bunker deleting nuke commissioned by Bush Jr during the Iraq war (tested in Alaska back in the 2000s, if I remember correctly, peak Iraq war lunacy) , that's not feasible at all. So ground troops is the only option. Maybe they'll try use incendiary bombs to try melt the sand/rubble at the tunnel entrances or something crazy. Or try skip some thermobaric bombs into the entrances. And then try use plastic explosive to blow a hole. Maybe they'll parachute a bulldozer in. We live in a mad world. Israel is already using these incendiary 2000lb bombs, from the looks of things.
They'll use Stalin's spoon to dig.
the US unveils its secret mecha hitler prototype, and we discover that the lost relic of Stalin's spoon has been stolen to be used against us!
100 troops who have never seen another country vs 1 artilleryman who has never seen another valley.
WHO WILL WIN
I think the most realistic scenario right now is a joint US-"Israel" invasion of Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah and score a win for the pedo-loving coalition.
my guess is they are going to try to get as many proxies to be the boots on the ground as possible along with US troops to keep Iran busy, and then airdrop special forces to try and get the nuclear material out maduro style. if it works they will pull out US and leave the rest to the proxies and call it an ultimate victory
If the million strong Iraqi army couldn't penerate Iran in a ground offensive, a gaggle of Kurdish militias who could barely hold the line against a few thousand ISIS fanatics definitely aren't going to trouble the massive Iranian army
A force that is organized to absorb North Vietnamese levels of casualties and US ordnance
yes the odds seem beyond low of US success. I don't even know if enough proxies will fall for it at this point. it leads me to think that there are a few things going on:
there is of course a combination of those and more depending on which exact ghoul you look at, but what I can't shake is, if the first two are dominant tactical nukes are on the table. I can imagine that Hegseth dreams every night of a mushroom cloud over Tehran which creates a rainbow bridge for Jesus to come down. As they become more and more isolated and hated, paranoid and fanatical, the people who have the ability to call that shot will see fewer and fewer reasons not to.
#3, only 6 US soldiers dead - all Western media is repeating this figure - even the controlled opposition mocking Trump.
And on Nukes, 80% of Tehran is evacuated... so it's not as bad as had they done something like that out the gate.
And if professor Jiang's predictive analysis of what this war would be (made 2 years ago) is to be trusted - Russia would set terms with the US not to get involved - but if the US or Israel nuke - they nuke. But maybe the Evangelicals want that.
yes its true, people really have no fucking clue what is going on over there. the full control of narrative is immense and they know that.
I say Tehran but they'd probably drop them all over the country, and as you are saying, it will likely initiate a MAD chain reaction of other nuclear armed nations going off. If your goal is the end of times, we have developed the technology to literally do that.
If Jesus doesn't literally return in an undeniable way, I have no reason to believe a group of people who have lived lifetimes of committing endless atrocities will sober up and decide to pump the brakes. If Jesus doesn't show up, what else could they say but "I guess we didn't kill enough people to trigger the prophecy, we need to kill more."
now is our opportunity to do more good deeds, to care for those around us, to try and organize our communities and to give thanks. no matter what happens, this is the way towards peace
Surely Iran will not expect this
Surely, there is a lesson in this for those who have sight
Hmm makes sense
they've already overplayed their hand, who knows at this point. there is a desperation building that makes for chaotic decision making
Yeah probably, plus US and Israeli air support for the proxies.
Theyre gonna drop the 82nd airborne on that island