this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2026
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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
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.
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This Wednesday will mark 12 days of this war, making it longer than last year's.
How long does everyone think this will go on for?
No idea, but the main issue I see here is that there's no off ramp. The US has twice now used negotiations as a ruse to launch an attack there is no more negotiating from the Iranian side they have openly stated this.
The US is going to keep pummeling Iranian civil society and hitting Iranian military capabilities, while Iran hits Israel, US bases, and crushes the global oil economy. Eventually there will have to be a return to the negotiation table, but I only see further escalation from both sides for the time being.
Possible off-ramps:
The problem with Trump ‘just leaving’ is that he really doesn’t have that option.
Iran will continue to blockade the strait and pummel the vassal states. The US cannot unilaterally end the war.
Yup, the US truly leaving would mean, at least, abandoning the GCC entirely. They could probably keep the Zionist entity on a lifeline but the war would continue between Iran and Israel.
In that case the GCC dumps US investments. AI collapses. GCC shifts to petroyuan, and Iran stops blocking GCC oil.
Yea this is the real issue here for the US, without the GCC the Petrol dollar will cease to exist and decades of work to control global financial markets explodes (literally).
They simply shouldn't have started the war. The US had so much leverage financially and politically to use against Iran. They evaporated all of their soft power, all that's left is hard power, and there is really no way that will be enough.
Trump is not the only one making decisions. Trump, miller, theil, bannon, graham, rubio, etc. Trump dying wont change amerikas trajectory much
But politically it would be an opportunity to leave the blame with Trump and change course, if they needed to at that point.
The stab-in-the-back myth really is the only way for imperialists to cope after a loss
I think Trump will simply shift blame onto Hegseth and fire him- he is a true believer, likely pushed for this war, and will probably alienate everyone but Huckabee by the time the economy goes into free fall. Trump will ceremonially “accept” responsibility as commander in chief for Hegseths mistake, but also declare victory, and then throw him (hegseth) under the bus completely. They will likely create a domestic political crisis in order to deflect from any “failure” and move the media cycle away from west asia- possibly even by releasing more of the Epstein files (but ofc not all of it)
I don't know if there's any "good" offramp at this point, but I could see the Administration making a fall guy for this whole debacle (probably Hegseth) and throw him under the bus while abandoning Israel to deal with it's mess.
Alternatively, I wonder if there's enough people within the Republican party who would go "eh, fuck this I'm done" and just flat out flee the country so they don't have to deal with it anymore.
Wasn't that about a ceasefire (that would allow the genocidal side to recover and regroup to come back again)?
Weeks at minimum, given the build-up.
Still thinking back to those fraud news articles saying that the US could only do a limited strike with a few days of bombing at most...
Tbf their logistics are dogshit and Tervell shared an article indicating how US strikes have been ramping down and Israeli strikes have been ramping up.
Relatively, Israeli strikes have ramped up more than US strikes have ramped down. But we're still looking at the US doing half of what they were at the start if the war.
This makes sense, because Israel is their unsinkable aircraft carrier. It's their wedge-shaped foothold between West-Asia and Africa - and they have considerable more there.
We’ll see about that!
Iran says they are ready for a 10 year war if needed
It will be over by Xmas. Not sure what year.
My guess, which is certain to be absolutely correct, is that this last 9-12 months.
This means it will either end before Wednesday or never
Yes exactly, in 9 months - that is to say Wednesday, December the 9th 2026.
It will last as long as the SMO
4 - 5 days, lol
March 11 is a preferred date for “terror attacks.” I think they drum up some domestic support the old fashioned way, allowing the US to mimic the “10 year war” line.