My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.
preamble
As many predicted quite early on in this conflict, the US simply does not have the stockpiles nor production lines to maintain the firing rates we saw in March and April. There's at least five strictly military problems:
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Not enough interceptors to shoot down Iranian missiles, and many missiles get through regardless. This includes a dearth of interceptors in the Zionist entity proper.
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Not enough stand-off munitions to cause a real breakdown of Iran's military and society. There's enough left in the submarines and in whatever stockpiles they have mustered to give one last very serious barrage before they're just completely out (unless they start taking all their missiles out of the Pacific and Europe), but even if this is done, this shock and awe failed the first time around, and the missile cities have proven impregnable to Western military technology.
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Not enough penetration of Iranian airspace to allow a transition from stand-off bombs to their near-endless supply of glide/gravity bombs. On the edges of Iranian territory it can be possible, but doing so any further inside causes exponential risk to the bombers. Notably, Reaper drones can carry JDAMs, hence why they continue to be used so much despite how often they're getting shot down.
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Not enough naval power to reopen Hormuz. Otherwise, the US could hypothetically wait out Iran and exert economic and covert pressure to encourage political collapse; with Hormuz in Iran's hands, the US's delaying tactics favor Iran instead.
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Not enough functioning and safe bases from which to launch counterattacks. Due to debasification (a word that has now spread far and wide after Amerikanet's coining, lol), the US has been pushed back away from the Gulf. This dangerously overpopulates rear bases with planes and makes it so sortie rates are reduced due to how much distance you have to travel and how many refuelers you need per bomber.
No angry proclamations, media offensives, or tacky AI image posts can change this reality, and boy is Trump putting out a lot of that last one. This is why, after the two weeks of attacks we just saw, we see the US very reticent to try and escalate further, and Trump's threat over last weekend to really start bombing Iran did not occur. This is being reflected in the US media, with several worried articles talking about how there just aren't enough missiles to keep the conflict going much longer. One of the only options left is to use ground/special forces to do... something, though pretty much no matter what target he selects, it's hard to imagine it breaking Iran, or doing much to end the conflict, or even being a successful operation past the point where you've landed troops somewhere. We saw the "pilot rescue" (uranium heist) operation fail and aborted before the forces could even step foot off the runway they landed on.
It is into this environment that Ansarallah has suddenly declared a blockade of Saudi Arabia - an architect of the blockade of Yemen and one of the major causes of the country's internal divisions between Ansarallah and comprador groups - and is turning their ships around at the entrance to the Red Sea, thereby cutting off a good chunk of the Saudi's remaining oil exports. Ansarallah has proven they were not interested in some cautious, gradual climb up the escalation ladder; when the Saudis hit a couple Yemeni port facilities, they went ahead and hit Jazan and Yanbu so hard that the fires were still raging a day or two after the initial strikes. The US is apparently asking for the MoU back, and this time with Ansarallah also placated, but it appears Iran is much less interested in the MoU now after it was thoroughly violated by the US the first time - and if it does return to it, it might have much more hardline demands.
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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:
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.
could see the fruit his actions have brought to bear. The determination of Palestinians like him have forced resolutions to decades of simmering contradictions that may have stewed for decades more. The John Brown of the Middle East.
