(credit to RomCom1989 for the title)
Image is of an Iranian soldier exulting in the launch of a ballistic missile aimed towards the imperialists.
short summary this week: US doing pretty bad and Iran doing pretty good all things considered, Strait of Hormuz is closed and will almost certainly remain so until the end of the war, Trump has no idea what to do, global economic crisis from strait closure is basically guaranteed at this point but who will ultimately benefit most and who will ultimately lose most is still up in the air.
longish summary is below in the spoiler tags
longish summary
While there are still major debates raging about how badly things are actually going right now and what the post-conflict map may look like, as we blaze past the two week mark on this conflict, it's becoming ever more obvious to almost everybody involved that this war is not going according to plan, if there ever was one. US airstrikes are, from what I can best determine, still mostly done with relatively less powerful (but still very dangerous!) and much less plentiful standoff munitions launched from bombers, though certain border and coastal areas are being struck with more powerful and more plentiful short-range guided bombs. This indicates that Iranian air defense is still sufficiently functional throughout most of Iran that the kinds of true carpet bombing done against Korea and Vietnam in the past (and Gaza very recently) is still too risky, though their airspace is still very much under assault, as we appear to have images of small groups of Western fighters breaching relatively deep into the country. Under some kind of Iranian pressure (drones? missiles? speedboats?) one aircraft carrier has retreated to a thousand kilometers from Iran, hiding behind the mountains of Oman; the other is sitting in the Red Sea, rather pointedly out of range of Yemen. As such, the ranges that Western aircraft must travel to bombard Iran is increasing, which reduces their frequency and increases strain on maintenance and logistics in the medium and long term.
While there is tons to say about the current social, economic, and military state of Iran, I don't think I have a reliable enough picture to give a good summary beyond "they aren't close to defeat or regime change". What has instead captured much of the world's attention is the continuing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has inspired some of the most delusional statements I have seen so far in my life, which is sincerely a profound achievement. For those out of the loop: the strait is currently closed to all shipping except those going to very particular countries (I've seen China and Bangladesh mentioned, and apparently India is in the process of working something out and may succeed or fail). This is because most ships are not risking the trip due to the ~20 tankers and container ships that Iran has already struck and disabled in the strait and in the Persian Gulf. Additionally, the threat from Iran's military to Navy ships is such that attempting to create a convoy to guide tankers through it is suicidal to both the Navy and merchant ships. Right now it cannot be done, and it very well might be the case that it could never be done, simply due to the combination of Iran's naval forces (hundreds, perhaps thousands, of armed, specialized speedboats designed for exactly this purpose), their drones (in the tens of thousands), their torpedoes, and if all else fails, their naval mines.
The Western reaction to this has been so moronic that it has almost integer underflowed into being philosophical: what does it truly mean for a passage to be "closed"? Has Iran truly "closed" the strait, or is the risk of traversing it simply too high for these cowardly sailors (who, for some strange reason, seem to care about their "lives" and "families")? How is it possible for Iran to have closed the strait if, according to the West, Iran's military has been totally obliterated? All these questions and more plague the minds of those who cannot accept the now-proven fact that there are indeed military forces on this planet that the US Navy with all its aircraft carriers and destroyers and submarines cannot defeat; and one of those minds is, rather hilariously, Trump himself. His thrice-daily positive affirmations that Iran has been defeated are taking on an increasingly deranged and almost pitiable tone; the lamentations of a man who has finally found a situation where him merely stating that something is true is insufficient to change the situation one iota. Despite stating that some kind of naval compact or alliance is being established to protect shipping, every Western country so far - from the UK, to France, to Japan, to Australia - has publicly stated that they will not risk their ships to do so. All this as the continued blockade yet further guarantees a worldwide energy, production, transportation, and food crisis that will have major global ramifications for at least the rest of the decade and almost certainly beyond.
If the anti-imperialists play their cards right, the US could lose much from this crisis, and others, like China and Russia, could gain a great deal. To quote Nia Frome (co-founder of Red Sails): "An effective Marxist has to be enough of an accelerationist/pervert to treat the obviously bad things that are going to happen as the political opportunities they are."
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.
Listening to the episode of American Prestige where they interviewed Robert Pape, you can tell they have theorycrafted, simulated, planned, and deliberated, on this exact scenario of a war with Iran; however, Pape is coming from the view that this nut wasn't cracked. Air supremacy and air campaigns for regime change do not work. That doing this war would lead to the "escalation trap" and then troops on the ground. American institutions are stacked with very smart people; and some people write the pro- air superiority documents, another group writes their critiques, trenches are dug, and they stay in their positions elaborating. But like all institutions made up of people, changes in leadership, purges (although Americans don't call them purges), retirements, and material conditions – cause ideologies to shift, and certain ideas to become ascendant or decline. This is to say, I agree with you: both things can be true.
The MIC and foreign policy establishment know what it takes to try and turn Iran into a neo-con's wet dream, but it requires trillions of dollars, millions dead, and a hell of an excuse. That Trump jumped at the chance, means only that he was too stupid, from his lack foresight and curiosity, to engage with the ideas behind their arguments. Are they setting me up for success, or will I merely be the fall guy, the patsy? He is also deeply compromised by the Epstein network. I can only imagine how his butt clenches at the idea of saying "No" to the Israelis.
The Israelis also benefit by ramping up anti-semitism in the metropoles that Jewish people have chosen to remain in. I am seeing a lot of Instagram posts (although admittedly, I've fallen down a conspiracy rabbit hole lately) blaming the Rothschilds (a single family, a jewish family) for all of this; posts claiming that a Silverstein (jewish name) bought an LA tower and therefore that'll be the site of the next 9/11. Last year, Hitler Speeches were perfectly dubbed in English; the youtube comments a bog full of gross manchildren. Israel's existence benefits from making the metropole less safe than the frontier (Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and near Gaza). I know a jewish kid from Venezuela, the only one I knew, who moved from Venezuela to Israel – I am wondering how he is faring; out of the frying pan and into the fire. If the instagram account is communist, the critique will be towards Zionism – which is the correct, but shadowbanned, argument. This is gonna get bad, and the more impressionable American jews are gonna prefer Israel to an anti-semitic America with 400 million guns, and neo-nazi law enforcement.
Yeah I agree with what you say, that was an interesting good episode (can’t tell if pape is really full of himself or autistic, he’s got a weird communication style, but his info is quite good and he definitely knows this subject area backwards and forwards). And actually the “trump owns the decision” take was from the most recent prestige episode, with the former state dept person whose name I can’t recall off the top of my head.
I still think this all might support the “it’s part of the plan” idea in that the plan is so baked into the environment that they are following it even though it will fail or backfire. As in it’s less of an intentional decision but more of a baked in outcome of how the people, system, etc are structured.
It gets pretty confusing to me when I try and sort out the distinction between grand geopolitical strategy and financial motives. Brian Belitics (sic, guy in new atlas) claims that a. They are predetermined to do this based on need for infinite growth to maintain their system, and b. They will try this, despite the clear reality that it will almost certainly fail/backfire, because they are the window closing wrt China, and to a lesser degree Russia, Iran, etc. They in this case not being Trump or Israelis, but the deep state/corp power/decision makers that undergird the whole system.
Looking at the tech leapfrogging going on, it seems pretty clear to me that the window is mostly already been closed, but again he’s talking about this almost zombie like structural basis for strategy that is hard to reform/correct under the current deep state/ corporate power havers.
I’m not claiming to support this view completely, but it does answer some nagging questions about various choices/behaviors with these recent events. So I’ve been trying to mull over how to square stuff in my head.
There’s an alternative option to all of this also, which has some allure given the last couple years: they know the goose is cooked generally, and everything is essentially fire sale and raiding the larder until the music stops. And they somehow feel that they will be able to insulate themselves from the fallout aftermath or enjoy their lives as they always have (I suspect they do a lot of magical thinking on this last part).