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.
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.