Image is of a Khorramshahr-4 medium range ballistic missile, which has a range of about 2000km.
As I said in the last megathread, trying to figure out what exactly is happening is becoming ever more difficult. The gist of things is that Iran has, very justifiably, refused to negotiate (assassinating their leader and striking their country with hundreds of missiles in the middle of negotiations causes some reluctance to return to the table, I suppose). Censorship across the Middle East has further ramped up, with reportedly extreme punishments for posting footage of Iranian strikes online. From what I can gather, Iran's number of strikes have stabilized at a comfortable daily rate, with strikes into both the Gulf monarchies and Occupied Palestine continuing apace. Official charts of these strikes over time seem very disconnected from reality on the ground, but again, it's hard to really get at the specifics.
The messaging on how long the war is expected to last is rather muddled on both sides. The Trump administration fluctuates more than daily - and even sometimes in the same speech - on whether the war is already won or whether it's going to last months longer. The US seems to be coming up a new possible scheme every few hours: a ground invasion with the Kurds? A ground invasion without the Kurds? An amphibious assault? A series of commando operations to steal Iranian uranium? A massive parachuting operation into Tehran? Fuck it, let's just send the Navy into the Strait of Hormuz? There doesn't seem to be a coherent plan for continuing hostilities beyond firing more and more of a limited stockpile of cruise missiles into mostly non-military targets, hitting easily replaceable drone and missile launchers with a limited stockpile of drones, and burning a limited stockpile of interceptors at an astounding rate (and, in the process, disarming every other Western-aligned country of their interceptors).
Meanwhile, from Iran, I've seen rumors and reports from classic anonymous "senior IRGC officials" (no doubt some invented by Zionists to sow confusion), that I don't know how to substantiate, ranging anywhere from "If the US pulls back their forces now, we will restart negotiations," to "It doesn't matter what the US or the Zionists do or say, we aren't stopping until every last trace of Zionism in the Middle East has been extinguished," to a few positions in between those poles. Despite the damage to infrastructure in Iran, it doesn't seem like there has been any political or social fracturing. Not to speak too soon - perhaps the West will start earnestly trying to overfly Iranian territory to drop their very plentiful bombs soon - but every indication is that there will be no regime change nor societal collapse in Iran in the short and medium term.
The US is desperately trying - and mostly failing - to keep a lid on the economic firestorm they have ignited. There has been much ado about oil prices and oil futures and indexes and what all the myriad Lines going up and down signify and things like that, which is befitting such a financialized empire which is so disconnected from the actual physical flows of materials and much more attuned to vibes and speeches. The only thing I'm personally paying much attention to on the economic front is the drones and missiles slamming into fossil fuel infrastructure, the Hormuz blockade, and the resulting global shockwave of shortages, stoppages, closures, bankruptcies, and force majeures spreading out from the epicenter that is Iran.
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
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.
So are we an echo chamber or is the US getting owned? Total lack of coverage makes me think it's the latter
Wondering the same thing myself
From what I can tell I think our echo chamber is correct in that the US/Israelis/west is on the back foot, the whole operation was a complete fuck up from the start and they’re getting their shit rocked in a way they did not expect and the global economy is hanging on by a thread at this point
What we’re not getting too much of in this thread is just how bad things are in Iran and the absolute humanitarian disaster unfolding over there. Pretty sure the US just wants to level the country at this point
The operation was a complete fuckup but Iran could still lose too much of its missile & drone launch/stockpile/production capacity in the tide could quickly turn.
Oh yeah I’m not saying the US-Israeli axis is completely done for, but the whole thing seems to have been a huge miscalculation and they seem to be trying to adapt on the fly
I think Iran is getting hit hard, absolutely, but they can make those drones on the cheap and I dont think they even know how much they have because of the mosaic defense strategy.
I do think Iran can win this struggle, and I havent felt as hopeful about it before - but obviously theyve been hit very fucking hard and its not going to be easy to dislodge the US or tamp down on Israel in the region.
Is there a chance of that realistically?
no; too many underground and covert surface facilities
I think people forget that Iran is the size of Mexico. It's not a small country and most of that land is terrain that's hard to penetrate.
It presumes they used it smartly and well though and prepared for a prolonged (months to a year or more) period of aerial bombing and total supremacy in their skies by the enemy which they may not have. It's not that hard if they have a total of for example 24 facilities storing/making these things with two entrances each to just keep bombing and entombing the entrances of them. Sure the Iranians can get some out by repeatedly excavating but not enough to wage the intensity of war they're currently waging and the US and zionists will keep degrading supply lines and the situation overall.
Let's recall up until the 12-day-war the liberal reformers who sought rapprochement with the west were firmly in command so they may not have allowed what they saw at the time years ago as excessive spending on building more production and storage facilities and doing so with multiple well camouflaged entrances. I guess we'll find out.
Yes they can hide people, small arms militias in the mountains but this is an air war. And to build bases, facilities capable of building drones or missiles to hurt your enemy to dissuade them and force them to the table you need supply lines which can be spotted by satellites and air recon, you need roads which can be spotted, you need food, you need to move people, etc. And you need places to launch these things which means airstrips for drones and properly equipped vehicles for missiles.
The US/zionist plan at this point may be just to completely destroy Iran. Destroy all infrastructure, starve the people, deprive them of water, internet, food, medicine and then leave and wait. Leave and wait and in that environment try to bribe ever larger groups of desperate people, try and do a color revolution with a moderate liberal or try to foment separatism and insurgency. And they have the bombs certainly to level most Iranian cities. To leave them husks of hollowed out buildings, no proper piped water, no reliable electricity. To dramatically lower the quality of life of the Iranian people who despite sanctions lived in a developed country.
The US may very well lose if Iran can keep this up for another few months while the oil stockpiles run out (if they can't then this will all have been for naught as the oil stockpile will keep gas and petro-chem prices high but not economy-breaking-high for the west). But even if the US loses, Iran will lose too. They'll end up like Yemen, impossible to take by ground, impossible to totally neutralize but devastated, their capacity to project power or defend themselves significantly compromised leaving the US and zionist entity significant operational freedom for years to come.
If the Iranian people's hearts are really hardened by this and the government too refuses to let it go and keeps pressing, it might be enough but it may take far longer than many of us here seem to think.
Iran can escalate and destroy the gulf states in kind though. Empty out the last of their volleys upon the oil and energy infrastructure and desalination plants. It's not hard to produce drones in secret, Ukraine does it in apartment complexes. Iran could have a thousand locations making drones, and can hold the strait of hormuz indefinitely. Will Israel and the US be able to "totally destroy" Iran before they are able to cripple the entire region and then between them and Yemen mine both straits? Iran has nuclear options they have not yet used. Not just the region, the world economy will be plunged into collapse. Imagine the Red Sea and Hormuz being blocked simultaneously. That is the main reason the gulf states have not yet joined in fully with their own forces, they fear the Ansarallah unplayed hand.
On the one hand yes. On the other hand I'll point out whenever someone brings up Ukraine that it is being directly armed, supplied, given intelligence, troops on the ground, money, counter-intel systems, manufacturing specialists, advanced communications, NSA/CIA hacking/anti-hacking support, etc by the entirety of NATO. Ukraine has a functioning western supplied anti-air defense that prevents Russian air superiority and restricts Russian air force to operating half a mile behind the front line at least and not deep into safe territory where the drones are made with the only threat being occasional missiles which the Russians hesitate to fire at living dwellings even if they knew they were probably making drones in them. Russian intelligence/satellite eye in the sky coverage is also nowhere near as good as US/mossad/combined private companies that delay data releases that make the US look bad of the west. The US won't have that hesitation to hurting civilians and has air superiority and can mostly operate freely with their advanced planes.
Iran by contrast does not have Chinese weapons shipments, or likely any more Russian weapons shipments at this point. The US would not hesitate to shoot down a Russian or Chinese transport bringing them weapons, meanwhile Russians cannot and likely would not shoot down a US air force plane transporting high tech air defense equipment because of some fiction they're playing at where NATO is obviously at war with them but they don't want to make them direct parties to it.
So I really resent the comparison to Ukraine. They're nothing alike. The entire west is openly doing anything, sending them anything, funding them, fueling them, providing shelter and cover, helping them source components through shell companies, etc. Ukrainian drones can be assembled from shipped in parts made in factories in China, Germany, UK, France, etc that no Russian missile or bomb will ever touch. Can Iran say the same? No doubt they can resist but it's not comparable and their situation is a lot tougher. Ukraine is playing on easy-mode with cheat codes, Iran is playing on brutal difficulty.
As another example Ukraine is able to get a lot of its electricity from neighbors who supply it after its own supplies are damaged and its main sources (nuclear) are not safe for Russians to totally damage. Iran isn't in the same situation with regards to power supply either.
I hope that's not hopium. I think a rational actor would have prepared for the current situation. But I don't know the limitations of the Iranian government or it's capability to prepare.
They could be blowing their entire stockpile in a hope to bring a favorable peace.
I think the real answer is that we'll have to wait and see once the dust has settled
The gulf states are arresting British tourists and giving them 2 year sentences for filming missile strikes happening right next to them, then they are putting out infographics saying they have 100% interception rate of all missiles.
Does this sound like it’s going well for them? There are helicopter gunships in the skies of Dubai hunting drones and hitting skyscrapers with machine gun fire
It's like a high speed police chase of a serial parking ticket delinquent barreling through a pre-school. In other words, I do believe this is happening.
Graduating from the same aviation school as the Ghost of Kuwait.
Iran is taking massive amounts of damage to both their military and civil infrastructure, but wars cannot be won with strategic bombing alone and nothing short of full on land invasion will stop drone production and strikes against ships in the strait and gulf infrastructure. I don’t see a win condition for America here.
It's illegal to post images or video of Iranian attacks in the Gulf states and Israel, the US bases are still evacuated, aircraft keep falling out of the sky mysteriously, the strait remains closed, missiles continue to rain down on the entity and american assets
I think it's safe to say this is the epstein coalition getting its shit rocked
I feel like you would hear a lot more gloating if it were going well. Instead they're going back and forth on whether or not it's actually a war and where to place the blame. Just compare this to what happened with maduro.
I think once the US and the Zionists are brave enough to switch from their standoff munition campaign with predominantly drones and Tomahawk missiles to a predominantly bombing campaign with aircraft-dropped bombs and JDAMs and bunker busters and the like, it might get real bad in Iran in terms of humanitarian disasters. The US's damage so far on Iran is predicated on burning through years and years of production of various missiles and drones in mere days - the first weeks were always going to be the worst of the war, barring any truly massive escalations like nukes. The level of damage seen so far is completely unsustainable for the West to continue due to dwindling stockpiles, reduced sorties as bases are wiped out and aircraft have to fly longer and thus require more mid-air refueling, and maintenance load increases on the air fleet. However, this is all only true as long as we don't see Iranian air defense destroyed to the point where the US can just fly bombers within 15-50 miles of cities and major towns, in which they'd have the range for glide bombs, of which the US has enough to bomb Iran for years and years. Again, I don't know the state of Iran's air defense, and honestly, I don't think anybody knows except Iran. It's not impossible that Iran is storing air defense equipment underground to set up anti-air ambushes later if they took lessons from Yemen's usage of the tactic, but it's impossible to us in this megathread to actually know.
But fundamentally I don't think the military of a war economy Iran could be destroyed even if they just went full Korean War and bombed Iran until there were literally no buildings on the surface. Even if they eventually run out of missiles in a few months, drones are just too easy for Iran to build en masse. Without regime change at the top, I don't even think this war is theoretically winnable, let alone practically. A stronger America has attacked weaker countries and lost.
The US actually going for a ground invasion is essentially impossible. They might - might - be able to land some amphibious forces on some offshore island for a week or two and plant a US flag for the media victory while dying en masse to drone strikes and then withdrawing, but I don't actually think there's a country on this planet that would be worse to try and invade from a geographical perspective than Iran. Maybe with 500,000 US troops, it shifts from "impossible" to "improbable", but the US certainly cannot field that many troops to the Middle East within half a year (if they can at all), which is half a year in which the global economy is massively suffering. If there's gonna be US troops stepping foot in Iran, it's going to be risky commando operations, but they're probably still the tactic with the highest plausibility of actually achieving a goal, so I think that's what they might try.
Overall I can't really come to any conclusion other than the US is getting its shit rocked. The Zionist entity is more of a black box due to the rampant censorship, though things certainly aren't going well there either.
You really don't need to understand anything other than this. The US always loses its wars.
The only metrics you should pay attention to is if there are ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz and if the Americans are using their bases near Iran. Either of those things happening would mean the US is beginning to get the upper hand. As of now neither of those things are true, and it seems the US has absolutely no ability to make either of those things true. They're getting their shit completely rocked.
The US is getting owned compared to every single other war the US has waged since Vietnam, yes.
Iran is also getting owned but militarily that was expected and does not matter at all as long as the drones and missiles keep coming.
I'd say Iran is clearly winning and the US has no way to exit the war while claiming victory.
Its hard to know exactly but one thing to consider is the difference in conditions for victory for each side. In order for the USA to win they need to put in place an entirely new government in Tehran. At this point it seems likely that the only way for them to do that would be with a successful boots on the ground invasion. Invading a country halfway across the world, with supply lines exposed to missile fire, the size of Alaska, with the geography of Switzerland, just doesn't seem realistic. Especially considering the US couldn't even produce enough materiel for fucking Ukraine.
Iran's condition for total victory is to take away the US's ability to project power into the middle east. If Iran can force the US to abandon its bases and force its allies abandon the cause, they will win, resoundingly. While still a huge ask this seems much more realistic on its surface. The US doesn't have the ability to handle losses on the homefront, they're running out of munitions, and their economy is teetering on the brink.
The big scary is the US's nuclear arsenal. If they use nukes against Iran everything goes to shit and I have no idea how things will end up. Certainly terrible for Iran but also likely terrible for the US in the long run.
Its possible for Iran's tactical outlook to be bleak, but still have the better strategic position, unless the US uses nukes.
(Though there are certainly people more knowledgeable than me)
I just don't know about the nuke thing. It would be entirely rational for Russia or China to MAD the US in that case.
If you let the U.S erase a country from existence, what’s next?
Well... most likely 3-5 years of hellish "peace" followed by MAD
Something absolutely horrible that is still preferable to nuclear Holocaust
We’ve already witnessed several genocides, apartheid states, etc. I think what we need is for the U.S to no longer exist.
The loony radical left keep telling me, "Mr Trump this is bad", but they are wrong. Wrong. The USA is the "hottest" it's ever been, we are Making America Great Again, and we are destroying Iran. Destroying Iran like no one ever did before. Believe me, folks, we are doing it.
with the tankers falling in Iraq to Air Defense ambushes , even the standoff strikes become hairy...
Maybe both?
Well it's hard to say the US is owned when Iran's navy was destroyed and over a 1000 people have died, but they are certainly underperforming.