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.
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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.
I mean this is obviously some bravado from the Iranians, but it does demonstrate the lack of off-ramp they are providing to the Americans. There's no way out of this boondoggle the Epstein Coalition constructed for themselves. Their oil reserves are measured in weeks, not years. The tempo of their attacks cannot maintain this level of intensity on the scale of even months. You cannot dislodge the Islamic Republic from the air. The number of drones launched from Iran, since the second day of the war, has remained constant, and it's estimated they can produce 10,000 more every month (!!!). That's over 300 drones a day, every day, for as long as this thing drags on. This production is not difficult, in fact Ukraine even produces drones in apartments. You cannot bomb your way out of this. What's next? I really don't know.
Source on that drone figure: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/iran-could-disrupt-strait-hormuz-with-drones-months-2026-03-04/
Ukraine assembles drones in apartments, but they have pretty reliable supply flows of components from Europe. There could come a point where Iran is no longer able to source the motors, electronics, raw materials, etc. But who knows how big their stockpiles are.
I do think time is on Iran's side for now, though.
I feel the US hope may be to obliterate Iran's large scale production capabilities, kill off their ability to make advanced missile weapons (impossible to kill off at least short range drones but they're also a lot easier and cheaper to shoot down), devastate the country, destroy water supply, electricity, food production, infrastructure like transport, communication, etc. Basically plunge the people into economic misery and hell and then leave and let Iran cook.
The hope being that those conditions will allow after some years for a US color revolution or at least separatism and terrorism to fragment the country apart in the medium-term (a couple decades) which will allow US control of most of the world's oil supplies and total lock-down of the west Asian region to blunt the belt and road from going overland to Europe and Africa and vice versa which allows a maritime deep-water-navy plus island chains and choke-points interdiction regime to be set up to pressure China by controlling the flow of goods to and from them as well as oil prices and supply giving the US leverage.
I guess I'm curious what is Iran's end-game? What can they demand from the US other than that they leave and not attack them again shortly? They can't demand the dissolution of the zionist entity, they can't demand and end to the comprador regimes of the gulf monarchies. They can keep attacking and fighting for years potentially yes and putting pressure on these entities but will they be able to and are they willing to if the US offers a deal?
Never underestimate a cornered animal like the US. It has a lot of surprises and capabilities. I feel if they can't get Iran to agree to a ceasefire they're going to have to do a land invasion. The empire will collapse if they don't and between the two they'll choose mass unpopularity and problems (they already have been ramping up the police state, a few more bills passed to end internet anonymity permanently, some more ALPRs and facial recognition deployment and they'll have a dream police state of massive capabilities for censorship and control of thought and action) over the end of capital's reign over the world.
So they'll do an invasion, possibly a draft but even without it they'll rope in all their European vassals to contribute bodies, they'll bring their top remaining hardened Ukrainian Nazis to join in and do terrible atrocities in the name of sapping the will and morale of the enemy, they'll try and force their Asian partners like Samsung Korea and Japan to contribute bodies. They'll basically scream at the whole western world to join in to save the oil and they'll heed the call because collapse of the US or oil markets doesn't benefit them. At that point the ball is in Russia and China's court as to whether it becomes a "world war". Because if neither join in or offer significant military support via shipments of weapons or parts for weapons then it'll just be the west vs Iran and though they won't succeed in conquering it, they could succeed in taking the major cities, putting in a puppet regime and at some expense controlling the country and preventing it from doing more than the occasional lobbing of missiles from mountain regions which will within 5 years be watched over by loitering AI drones from the US and zionist entity automatically murdering anyone there as a combatant. It'll be a terrible strain on the west, they'll lose far more lives than in Iraq or Afghanistan but with the current secretary of war being a Crusader Kings LARPer or whatever his deal is he'll just say it's necessary to create a warrior ethos capable of challenging China. They'll censor the number of deaths and do even more media control than they did in the GWOT era.
But if they can't commit to a land invasion for whatever reason and Iran presses its luck just right maybe we could see a collapse. We're certainly going to see a lot of pain inflicted on the west, oil price shocks, etc if Iran keeps pressing the attack. However I am not sure the Iranian lust for revenge is that great. They can very easily after a month of this and price shocks stop and accept a ceasefire and say they taught the west a lesson and then things just go back to normal.
The thing working against that is the fools here trying to create rubble to create an ecosystem suitable to separatism, terrorism and discontent with the government mean they have more things to avenge, more reasons to continue to fight. So the US's long term goals may be at odds with what their best short term interests are. But given all the talk of short term pain for gain I think the real thing is whether capital taps Trump on the shoulder and tells him enough. And the question then is if Trump tries to stop, will the Iranians let him? If they don't let him, if they keep attacking will capital then back full commitment and a war to stop the economic pain? Or will they try and throw in the towel and offer concessions to Iran and will Trump let them or will he have to be removed at some point?
If Iran decides to take the bull by the horns, America is in a deadly trap.
There is no way out of this that doesn't end with the collapse of the Empire, so long as Iran doesn't back down. (That includes nuclear weapons.)
What an utterly foolish move by these pathetic Imperialist dogs - giving the Iranians the perfect excuse to shut down the production of oil.
Can't they simply nuke Iran or even just leave the war?
Iran has no ability to chase after US, how would the empire collapse of they just retreat like they did in Vietnam or Afghanistan?
It doesn't stop the fact that Iran still got bombed to hell and no other countries want to experience being bombed to hell to win nothing except a lower state of survival
They can nuke Iran, sure, but that's gonna collapse the American imperium real quick for a number of other reasons. Presumably Dubai would not enjoy being a few dozen miles from an irradiated wasteland. If they leave the war, same result; Iran just keeps pounding the Gulf, full American tactical retreat from the Middle East, and the Gulf falls out of the American sphere of influence. The true age of multi-polarity kicks off with the Gulf pursuing its own interests against the Americans; it's hard to overstate how important the Gulf states are to continued American empire.
Oil is global and the strait of Hormuz can’t be taken home.
Meanwhile, the attacks on the vassals in the Middle East will only escalate without US protection.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Middle East is the crown jewel of the Anglo Empire - control over oil is an overriding strategic priority.
Giving it up voluntarily by just going home isn’t something Trump would even be allowed to do.
Nuclear weapons can’t defeat the Iranian army alone and using them would completely destroy the US on the international stage. It would probably lead to WW3 and could end the world as we know it - ending the Empire.
None of this exists without the US throwing the first punch, so to speak. If Iran had shut the strait down unilaterally, they would get no international support and be doomed.
Iran has 10000 chances a month to make the occupation of the Middle East hell for the US. The US has to successfully stymie 10000 monthly attempts to make their life hell. That’s really good math for Iran and really bad math for the US.
I don’t think it’s just bravado when Iran says they’re ready to fight for ten years. The US is quite literally incapable of winning. Iran knows that the US can try to turn it into Iraq or Afghanistan if it wants, but its terrain/population size presents the worst of both scenarios for the US, who will eventually have to answer to its people about why bodies keep returning home draped in the flag.
I like the cut of this Jibbari's jib