A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like "in Minecraft") and comments containing it will be removed.
Image is one of many rallies in Iran in support of the government and the leadership.
short summary here, longish summary in spoiler tags below: Western standoff munition stockpiles now substantially depleted, therefore Western aircraft activity directly over Iran increasing (as is footage of attempted and actual hits against them) as the US attempts to transition more to using bombs dropped directly onto targets, Iran is increasingly in the driver's seat and controlling the conflict, world economy is fucked and yet could still get much worse very soon, if you require a car to live (especially if it's not electric) and cannot work from home then you have my sincere condolences
longish summary here
While I've seen several estimates on the current stockpiles of US and Zionist missiles and interceptors - somewhere in the realm of a third depleted, perhaps even up to half - it seems like we're reaching the point at which the US does not want to commit even more standoff munitions and is trying their luck against the Iranian air defense network directly.
We have already seen footage of Iran attempting to shoot down, and sometimes actually striking Western fifth generation planes like the F-35, and more footage along those lines is appearing for other plane models (with one side claiming that they evaded interception and the other claiming they hit it, etc etc, propaganda is everywhere, you know the drill). How much the US is willing to test their planes against Iranian air defense is a matter of debate. Strictly speaking, a few fighter jets and bombers shot down would be no catastrophic loss in the grand scheme of things, as the US has hundreds. However, the narrative of such a thing would be quite bad for the US - "You're telling me an OBLITERATED Iranian military can shoot down some of our most advanced equipment?? What are we gonna do against China?!" - and given Trump's deranged jingoistic rhetoric aimed to buoy markets, it's clear that he cares very deeply about narratives. Additionally, with Chinese exports of several critical metals to the US banned, the prospect of replacing these aircraft (and indeed the standoff munitions and the interceptors and the ground radars etc) is looking questionable.
All the while, Iran continues its strikes across the Middle East. Missile and drone strikes are reportedly on the uptick again, demonstrating that Iranian military capabilities have by no means been "destroyed" as Western propaganda claim, though it's impossible to sure there was ever a significant downtick due to Western censorship and outright fabrications. People around the world are gradually realizing the magnitude of the economic disaster that is occurring and may yet occur. Refineries and factories which deal with oil and gas directly are starting to slow down or stop production, and those who make products downstream of those are starting to follow them like dominoes. Outrage at gas station prices is rising, and many countries are considering limiting civilian driving and implementing work-from-home policies akin to the coronavirus pandemic. And now, threats are being made by Trump against both Kharg Island (where most Iranian oil is shipped from) and the Iranian electrical grid - which is highly decentralized and would require a prolonged bombing campaign to completely take out -and the promised Iranian reprisal would be apocalyptic to the Middle East. It would make oil prices rise to previously unfathomable heights as oil infrastructure turned off and remained off for months, perhaps years, and set in motion one of the world's greatest humanitarian catastrophes as the desalination necessary for tens of millions of people is shut down. It would also not be a symmetrical problem, as Iran does not rely on desalination for its water supply.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.
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.
https://xcancel.com/Acyn/status/2036963832502055229
At this point I think troops on the ground is an inevitability mostly because the US doesn't have the munitions to sustain this war for as long as they need to. A couple different thoughts here.
First, the US has one overriding need in the war: open the Strait. As we all know, Iran is pressing the economic nuke button and it's going to explode in everyone's faces, especially the west. It will prompt instability across the world in all the places the US wants it least: Europe, Latin American comprador states, the Gulf monarchies, the East Asian US military outposts occasionally referred to as Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. Revolutions are on the table in Latin America. US economic collapse, etc, etc. We all know the costs of Iran exerting control over the Strait. It's the most significant problem BY FAR for the US, since all of the empire's adventurism in West Asia is very specifically about This Thing Not Happening. There can be no US victory here without the Strait open to the flow of Arab family dictatorship oil - anything else is a worst case scenario defeat.
Second, opening it simply WILL NOT happen through an air campaign. The threshold for keeping it closed on Iran's part is so low - make Shaheds or the speedboat equivalent and be willing to use them. That's all that's required. The US hasn't knocked down this capacity substantially even before we account for the massive stores of drones they've got stored all around the country. The US would need to be able to maintain this pace for years, not months. Years of constant air campaigns launched from distant bases and rickety aircraft carriers on overstrained airframes with coked-out low morale pilots and expensive munitions. Though the close-up bombs are essentially infinite, the stand-off munitions are dwindling much more rapidly than they can be produced.
Third, therefore, the only way to actually open the Strait is to put in place a comprador government in Iran. The Israelis want state collapse, but that actually wouldn't meet the US objectives, because the endless militant factions that would emerge could just as easily keep the Strait closed to extract concessions or simply to punish the rest of the world for destroying their country. So the US needs to force actual surrender. That could be through a years long campaign (which we know the US is less able to withstand than Iran) or through successfully pulling off a Venezuela. But Trump fundamentally misunderstands what happened in Venezuela or why - it's not a comprador government he hand-picked, but a government following its normal succession procedures and carrying out a partial strategic retreat under immense overwhelming power it's unable to repel. However, the Golden Warfighters will continue to believe they can go in and kidnap Araghchi and Khamenei and whoever else to eventually get to Their Guy. But there is no Their Guy as long as Iran as a nation retains the capacity to resist. Delcy Rodriguez is not Their Guy, she just doesn't have any other choice but to surrender oil control - internally, the revolution remains intact. Iran has the choice to keep the Strait closed.
So the contradictions compel the US to further military entanglement. Retreat is surrendering the Strait and the political foundation for control over it. A gigantic mega epic spec ops beardy boy attack might kidnap and kill some Iranian leaders, but mostly it'll get all the US's best and most fanatical dudes wasted just like Azov in Ukraine. The US at that point can decide to push harder and attempt a larger-scale land invasion, but they'll all just get blown up on the way through Iraq. They can push through that, but it's the sort of thing that turns a US war into a political mass movement and threatens the foundation of the whole system (before even accounting for the economic disaster!). Eventually, the US will be forced to make the choice all empires do at this stage - surrender control over that valuable distant land and retrench around your closer, more pliable vassals. Decline and contraction are an inevitabilty, and boots on the ground are the next important step to make that happen.
I'm curious to know more about how this can incite revolutions in South America
Here's a comment I wrote earlier today about Ecuador in particular but which I think is largely applicable to Chile, Peru, and Bolivia as well:
Revolution in Ecuador?
The Ecuador tag People's Dispatch gives a good overview of different stories I'm synthesizing for this conclusion. https://peoplesdispatch.org/custom/regions/latin-america-caribbean/ecuador/And Lenin says:
(1) Noboa is extremely unpopular and dependent on foreign support from the weakening US empire. He needs a mixture of drug crime, direct US military intervention, US financial backing, and inactivity of the people to continue what he's doing.
(2) Ecuador has experienced the most dramatic decline in living conditions anywhere in Latin America, from a relatively peaceful and prosperous country under leftist Correa to where it is now due to, first, betrayal in office by Correa's successor and, second, blatant election theft by the current right winger. They've had it demonstrated repeatedly and in different ways the failure of the electoral system to respond to democratic demands and the people's needs.
(3) There had been substantial activity in the masses. Last year's diesel price protest lead by CONAIE was massive and debilitated the country - Noboa had to deploy massive state violence to crush it. CONAIE has topples ruling coalitions through protest before, though not through to a full revolution. They are resilient and will come back from the repression when the masses have the motivation to do so.
I believe with dramatically rising oil prices, Noboa's openly dictatorial behavior, global unrest and instability, and a well-organized multinational movement with historically demonstrated revolutionary potential, Ecuador has the right mix of conditions for a proper revolution or AT LEAST the removal of Noboa and new, more democratic elections. CONAIE is a key piece of the puzzle. For what it's worth, I think Bolivia, Chile, and Peru are all in similar places, but I have the most trust in CONAIE to carry out the task.
To expand beyond just Ecuador, my analysis is combining a few important factors that are common across Western/Andean South America right now. Some of this will echo what is written above and a lot of it applies in other parts of LatAm too.
The four Andean countries I'm looking at - Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile - are all in a very similar geopolitical position right now. In more or less recent history, each of these countries had a leftist in power. Bolivia for two decades was lead by MAS, carrying out (imo) the most successful electoral socialist project in history; Ecuador under Correa from 2007-2017 successfully implemented many components of Socialism in the 21st century in close allegiance with Bolivia. They both became "Plurinational" republics. Peru had Castillo, a communist, removed in a legislative coup. Chile had weak-ass Boric and nearly elected a communist in his wake. Each of these leftist efforts, mostly legitimate attempts at socialism, were undone by US interference and internal contradictions. There's no need to dive in detail in each of them, but the important conclusion is that each country is undergoing a hard right-wing turn at the highest level imposed by the US with very little popular support (popular support is the reason I'm not really considering Argentina in this, where US-style Nazi tendencies are much stronger and Milei is inexplicably popular). Militarism that resembles the late 20th century is being re-imposed on the large indigenous, campesino, and working classes of the Andes.
In each country, to varying degrees, those classes are well-organized along leftist lines. Again, this looks different in each country. CONAIE in Ecuador and the post-MAS Evo-led movement in Bolivia are indigenous driven and, in their ways, committed to a socialist vision. The various communist and popular movements in Peru are collectively large and can carry out major mobilizations , and even effectively ousted the right wing president, with a leftist interim caretaker currently in the presidency. Chile is the shakiest case of these, but the new Nazi president Kast is already enormously unpopular after defeating a communist candidate running in Boric's coalition.
In South America, diesel fuel is extremely important to the economy and have a huge political influence. The small farmers across this region rely heavily on diesel for all their transportation. Mass protests in the region are often directly linked to rising fuel prices - not to mention being tied to explicitly political demands for democracy, sovereignty, and socialism. The Iran war is going to massively accelerate this contradiction exactly as right-wing, US-aligned governments crumble in popularity on other political and economic issues. This happens while Colombia under Petro is doing pretty good, he's hugely popular, and it looks like the elections this year will go in his party's favor. Oil reality will end up playing in Venezuela's favor this year, I believe, as the revolution on the ground there remains strong and in control despite the kidnapping of Maduro and the theft of oil control.
Socialist consciousness and the failures of electoralism are fresh in the minds of the Andean masses. As long as the US is entangled in West Asia, its ability to project power in Latin America is restrained - if it waits too long to withdraw from the Arab world, things in South America will get out of hand as the Pink Tide reemerges to swallow up the right-wing swing.
I'm a believer that Latin American revolution looks a little less revolutionary from the outside than it does in other parts of the world. Democratic systems in Latin America are actually quite strong, relative to Africa and non-socialist Asia, and the Bolivarian Revolution demonstrates that elections can have an important role in a dialectical revolutionary process. When you pair mass movements, on the ground-socialist construction, and electoral victories, you can achieve revolutionary change without quite needing to overthrow a government through force of arms.
I see the Pink Tide not as a phenomena that emerged and receded in a narrow time period, but as one swelling in Latin America's long movement towards sovereignty and socialism. While it may have been beaten back in many countries, it left indelible marks, permanent changes, and a lasting new Acutally Existing Socialist state in Venezuela. It remains more or less in power in the regions two largest countries, Mexico and Brazil. It was the successor to the end of the military dictatorships, and it was followed by what Vijay Prashad calls the "Angry Tide", the reactionary movement that we've seen over the last five years or so. The Angry Tide is a temporary condition. When viewed over time, Latin America as a whole has progressively moved left, secured more sovereignty, and asserted more ability to chart its own course forward, and the setbacks have never been able to outweigh to overall trend.
My prediction is that, in the next decade, we see most of the following play out:
Mexico essentially becomes a one-party state under MORENA due to their enormous popularity and electoral dominance, and they continue to pursue what is the most left-wing possible path for a country 'so far from God and so close to the United States'.
Lula wins re-election in Brazil and PT finally solves the successor problem with a candidate who emerges from the movement centered around MST. The right is crushed through legal means in a continuation of what's been justly done to Bolsonaro.
A Bolivarian-style revolution in one or two of the Andean states - probably Bolivia and Ecuador, Peru maybe, Chile as a longshot - establish new socialist states that are more resilient to outside influence.
Cepede follows Petro in Colombia, marking a permanent break away from the US. He pushes the Historic Pact and his country further left. Similar to Brazil, legal and legislative tools are used to dismantle major right wing forces.
Combining the above, ALBA and MERCOSUR get bigger and stronger than before and Latin American multilateralism builds a meaningful bulwark against US interference. If Ecuador gets its own Bolivarian revolution, then we see it work with Colombia and Venezuela on a Gran Colombia project that looks structurally like the Alliance of Sahel States.
Argentina continues to carry out disruptive new market-driven innovations in becoming the first Fourth World Country, and it acts as a gigantic beacon to the rest of the continent of what happens if you let the US run wild in your country. I do not think a leftist comes to power there any time soon.
The US accelerates all of this by prolonging the Iran war.
Great post. Thank you, comrade
I think the nuclear part is also basically just as high. If they do not take the enriched uranium and destroy all the equipment for the nuclear facilities, then they should assume Iran will immediately make nukes and once they have enough use them and the strait to get back to where we are now, but with the added threat. But given the requirements to do that and to prevent rebuilding in the near future, they still need a puppet installed first. The fastest way to open the strait for now would be to rapidly withdraw from the region, cancel all sanctions, and give reparations.
But it kicks the can down the road given they can't help but do imperialism and I have a hard time seeing them taking that option at this point. But if they can't take that option now, after thousands of ground invaders get killed, I have a harder time seeing them do that. Which leaves going back to bombing by trying to wipe city after city off the map...
I think the grand strategy plan was to leverage dominance in South America to offset burning down the middle east in an attempt to cut off China from oil markets, all while dumping Europe, The GCC, and Israel to duke it out alone as they're a net drain on the American MIC.
In practice, Venezuela will take years to exploit to the same level as the gulf, even with a comprador regime installed. The Chinese reliance on Iranian and Gulf oil was overplayed, and timed with European/Ukrainian sabotage that ultimately drove Russian exports back towards the east. The US empire doesn't have the same command over its productive forces as China, and can't magic up refineries and oil pipelines with cash alone.
The US was gambling on China being hurt more than anyone else from this fiasco and clearly that's proving to be bullshit. The collapse of materialist analysis within the intelligentsia is revealing itself, with its idealistic vision of a "manifest destiny" reenactment undoing decades of empire building.