Image is of destruction and damage inside Israel, sourced from this article.
Iran and Israel have struck each other many times over the last few days. There has been a general focus on military facilities and headquarters by both sides, though Israel has also struck oil facilities, civilian structures and hospitals, and in return for this, Iran has struck major scientific centers and the Haifa oil facilities.
Israel appears to have three main aims. First, to collapse the Iranian state, either through shock and breakdown by killing enough senior officials, or via some sort of internal military coup. Second, to try and destroy Iranian nuclear sites and underground missile cities, or at least to paralyze them long enough to achieve the first and third goals. And third, to bring the US into a direct conflict with Iran. This is because the US better equipped to fight them than Israel is (though victory would still not be guaranteed depending on what Iran chooses to do).
Iranian nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground (800 meters), far beyond the depth range of even the most powerful bunker busters (~70 meters or so), and built such that the visible ground entrances are horizontally far away in an unknown direction from the actual underground chambers. Only an extremely competent full-scale American bombing force all simultaneously using multiple of the most powerful conventional (perhaps even nuclear) bunker busters could even hypothetically hope to breach them (and we have seen how, in practice, American bunker busters have largely failed to impair or deter Ansarallah). There are several analysts on both sides who have concluded that it is entirely impossible to physically prevent Iran from building nukes.
I fully expect the US to join the war. I believe the current ambiguity is a deliberate invention of the US while they work to move their military assets into position, and as soon as they are ready, the US will start bombing Iran. After that, Iran’s leadership must - if they haven’t already - harden their hearts, and strike back with no fear, or risk following the path of Libya, Syria, and Iraq, either into either surrender, occupation, or annihilation. Every day where they do not possess a nuke is a day where lives are being lost and cities are being bombed.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s 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.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
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.
they’ve whipped tulsi into line and now she’s repeating the ‘iran could have a nuke within 2 weeks’ dogma
It’s very obvious the nuke shit is fake as hell, and the real goal is regime change/breaking the country like Lebanon. Iran is the last country on the list of 7 nations that were to be overthrown. It was just to get America’s toes wet to check the temperature, we’ll see America cannonball in soon
Good luck making a regime change in Iran happen now. The government was just handed one massive pr victory and their conventional military is strong enough that it won’t be overrun by ISISrael militias any time soon.
Israel and America are willing to turn Tehran into Gaza to “destroy Hamas” sorry I mean “the regime”. For them regime change means millions dead through bombing campaigns. Shock and awe means wiping out civilian infrastructure that supports life.
I don’t think so. Iran still has anti-air capabilities, can get resupplied by China, and now the US officially claimed to have destroyed the nuclear capabilities so there will be no ‘nuke’ to justify a ‘preemptive’ nuke. The reason isntreal could do to Gaza what it did was because they had complete control of borders, air food and water. They are neither in artillery range nor conventional bomb range.
The isntreal army itself has shown itself to be worse than shit. They can’t even use their most advanced strategies like driving unaccompanied tanks into cities here, and if their pilots are anything like those ground soldiers, they won’t ever enter east Iran.
Or I’m just high on copium rn. Idk.
Read Michael Hudson here: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/06/michael-hudson-why-america-is-at-war-with-iran.html
The whole point is destabilization. America is using Israel to destabilize the Middle East just like how it has been using Ukraine to keep Russia busy. It is to prevent the Global Majority from seeking an alternative framework to the US dominated neoliberal order - or whatever brand of fascism it is trying to transition into right now.
Iran has its own industrial base but it is not like Russia with its remnant socialist industrial base, and certainly has suffered a lot under sanctions. It will need a lot of foreign aid, and even then, the whole country is going to suffer with a war going on. If it’s a long war, then we’re looking at years of lost economic development.
For the US, it doesn’t care. It wants chaos, trade flow disruption, killing the economy of the exporting countries so that they come to beg for a deal, which will open up their domestic economy to influx of foreign finance capital. If the US have its way, expect to see record IMF or foreign capital bailouts over the next few years.
This is why an alternative economic and financial framework is needed. We’ve had the chance 3 years ago when the Ukraine war started, but because the so-called BRICS did not have the political will to come together and do it, the whole window of opportunity for de-dollarization has been utterly wasted.
The only card left to play that I can see is for China to give up its net exporter status to absorb the surplus exports from the rest of the world, but the Chinese leaders are very unwilling to do it. They want to convince the US to go back to the status quo which they both enjoyed for the past couple decades.
Conclusion: nothing matters unless the notoriously do-nothing Chinese leaders do something
I don’t think they would get all the way to gaza levels, where 95% of buildings are damaged or destroyed. That requires demolition teams and bulldozers and occupation. I think it could get to Beirut or Damascus levels, both of which Israelis threatened to “turn into Gaza” and then used the Dahiya doctrine to smash the cities apart. They aren’t Gaza, but the damage is incalculable. The historic buildings and centuries of culture and decades of development all gone. This is what the Americans also did during “Shock and Awe” in Baghdad, killing hundreds of thousands of people and destroying all power/water/utilities/etc. They will also likely target mosques, police stations, schools and hospitals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine
Israeli infantry and tank forces are pathetic, that you are correct about. I don’t think we’ll see them anywhere near Iran for quite some time. It will be airstrikes and drones and missiles and carbombs and the like.
The thing about the Dahiya warcrime doctrine is, that it wont work nearly as smoothly on a country like Iran as it does with militias. Iran has the resources to help families targeted by isntreal back on its feet economically, while said families would just be massively pissed off. It “works” against militias in poor countries because isntreal threatens them with long-term economic devastation while said militias can hardly strike back.
As long as the US can’t manufacture enough consent to carpet bomb cities and industrial sites, pissrael is shit out of luck with their terror strategies. And the US has already shown they are hesitating at least somewhat. If they get involved, it will be against the Iranian military targets like balistic missile launchers first, not cities.
Iran needs more anti-air urgently, but they are at least mostly prepared for this sort of war. isntreal isn’t.
I disagree heavily with every sentence in this paragraph.
Consent manufacturing no longer matters, this war is massively unpopular and they never even bothered with coming up with a justification. It’s naked aggression.
Where did they show this? You falling for Trump kayfabe like the Iranians did multiple times in a row? They attacked exactly when Sy Hersh leaked that they would. The “two weeks” thing was fake and misdirection. The operation was scheduled the whole time and went off exactly when scheduled. Israel’s initial attack last Friday was with Trump’s full knowledge and blessing. They are all fully committed to the most extreme zionist option. If you look at what they do and not what they say, it’s always the most bloodthirsty and aggressive option and they throw up a smokescreen of “negotiations” or “chickening out” to throw people off.
They will do SEAD/DEAD to clear out anti-air systems and clear the pathway for Israeli jets to do stand-in strikes on the city, the terror bombings. America will also hit dual-use infrastructure such as bridges, rail stations, power plants, etc.
Destroying the missile stockpiles and launchers will probably be the excuse the media uses for America to re-engage in the conflict. It will spread from there to SEAD/DEAD to clear out anti-air, railways, then to bridges, etc.
I think consent manufacturing matters at least somewhat in the sense that it limits the pace of American aggression. The public opinion in the US doesn’t matter in the slightest, but they still have to advance a narrative here.
The US can plan around consent manufacturing, but it can not outright ignore it.
If public opinion doesn’t matter who is the narrative for?
In addition, if America goes all-in they easily have the assets and capability to suppress and destroy most of the anti-air and get air superiority or even supremacy. Iran has little to no air-force to speak of and there’s tactics to hunt down and kill anti-air systems. Plus unfortunately a lot of the long range systems capable of hitting jets were destroyed by mossad operatives on Friday via sabotage and RPG and drone strikes. S300s and the Iranian domestic equivalent are in extremely short supply.
Ukraine was able to stave off Russia for years from getting air supremacy over most of Ukraine, but that’s only because A) The Russian airforce is not quite as advanced or large as America’s and B) Ukraine was getting pumped full of patriot systems and other western air defense systems. Will China supply an equivalent amount of anti-air systems to Iran?
There was rumors of up to 5 F35s shot down last weekend, with a pilot supposedly captured. I’m yet to see any proof of these claims actually materialize.
Yeah. The worst thing the US could do to Iran is something like the “No fly zone” bs they pulled in Libya and hunt down the AA, but that wont be nearly as effective without a simultaneous ground invasion.
As long as Iran plays a little hide and seek with their AA, even just shoots down one isntreal plane once in a while, that might just be enough deterrence. We’ve yet to see a war being fought where no ground troops/insurgents are deployed, which makes this hard to predict.
If AA is moving or hiding it cannot do it’s job. It cannot use its radar and it cannot fire its missiles. It is suppressed during that time until it can set up somewhere and connect back to the radar network. The network loses that radar during that time as well and loses coverage in an area.
This is a layman’s description of SEAD, when combined with Electronic Warfare jamming. Keep the enemy AA hiding, moving, afraid to turn on its radar and isolated from the rest of the network. If Iran is at the point where they have to do this in their capital city, then America/Israel would have achieved air superiority and the ability to do tons of bombing runs at their pleasure.
The possible presence of functional AA makes bombing campaigns a lot harder though, as you have to keep SEAD up constantly. It’s very different from countries that don’t have AA whatsoever. Mostly, it is a lot more costly.
Yes it will be costly. Lots of jet fuel and bombs too. Good thing America doesn’t have a trillion dollar unlimited budget… oh wait
if iran doesn’t respond to this attack they might get a regime change that hates america even more than the current government.
iran 2, this time with no libs allowed