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.
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
In the end it all still comes down to money though. There is only so much the US can still suck out of its population without touching the bottom line of their rich, they lack sufficient industrial capacity to balance out losses, and we have no clear grasp on their stockpiles.
As long as USD is the global reserve currency, no there really is no functional limit to the spending the US can do. They have the infinite money hack. Mass printing will never devalue the dollar and cause inflation because it’s so in demand worldwide that it all just gets snapped up. The debt can go to ten quadrillion it don’t matter, people will buy it.
Also, wasting money is the point. The MIC makes massive profits, and massive amounts of fixed capital is destroyed in both the west and in Iran - thus increasing the overall rate of profit in the system. This is the point of imperialism.
The issue with the statements you’ve made in this comment thread is that it implies an eternal system of imperialism (there can be no opposition because the US is too powerful, if they win they make profit, if they lose they make profit, that plus the dollar system means they will always enough money, if that’s the case then guerrilla wars won’t work, conventional wars won’t work, nuclear wars end humanity so those don’t work, etc) and if that’s the case then Mao is wrong, Stalin is wrong, Lenin is wrong, Marx is wrong, and many other figures are wrong, but those figures created successful models of economics and society that have worked well up to this point so it would be strange if in 2025 we crossed some magical event horizon at which the theories broke down.
It’s like solving an equation and at every step you think you’re making valid assumptions and then like, your soccer ball weighs 292 tons and travels 3000 mph, and you’re like, oh shit, this is the wrong answer, I made a mistake somewhere.
I never said the imperialists will even win here. I never said conventional or guerrilla war were futile. But we should be realistic about what to expect in this war, and anyone saying Tehran isn’t going to get the shit carpet bombed out of it is living in a bit of delusion and in for a rude shock. There will be mass death and mass destruction of infrastructure. However, Iran has the ability to inflict that right back onto the entity. If Israel shatters first, then Iran will have achieved victory. If we’re talking about a war of attrition here with America having air superiority, I hope you all know what that means. It means Korean War levels of ordinance sent in on guided bombs.
There is no way for Iran to get out of it unfortunately short of pulling a nuke from their ass. They played their cards wrong leading up to this and they are stuck in this war now. If Iran’s sovereignty and coherency is to survive this, they will need to fight back via a protracted total war at a certain point and race for the bomb. The strait of hormuz economic nuke is their last major card, but if they wait too long to play it they might lose the ability to do so. Will Iran exercise the political will to take such a bold move when they thus far have never escalated, only went tit-for-tat?
I also said US has functionally unlimited spending (btw not actually unlimited, if China and others stop buying American debt and stop holding their reserves in USD then this magic printer’s efficiency rate plummets and inflation becomes a real concern), but that doesn’t mean they have unlimited war production. They do have fixed amounts of munitions and pretty abysmal production levels. Still enough to level huge parts of Iran, but not even to actually win the war. Doing something like attriting Israel of interceptors should be a very attainable goal, and it opens up new options.
Note how I also said “as long as USD is the global reserve currency”, another weak point to attack the imperialists from. But this is outside of Iran’s direct control, China really needs to lead on this or it will not happen in any realistic timeframe. China could also lead a trade war upon the west and directly limit their resources in such a way that would cause bottlenecks in their war logistics chains. Will China do any of this? Or will they continue to do nothing and profit until they are isolated and surrounded?
The point of imperialism is getting access to cheap labor, resources and markets to exploit. The war in Iran does not directly facilitate these aims, it only protects what is already archived. Iran, as a power aligned against the US, was a threat, not an opportunity.
There will be no profitable infrastructure projects from this in the US’s future, except maybe in isntreal. No massive PMC security contracts or resource deals. There is little to “win” here if they don’t manage a regime change, which it looks like they won’t.
This is the US fighting a war they need to fight to keep the conditions you mentioned, not something that will advance their imperial ambitions. This is a war that will cost the US, not benefit it.
Simply the destruction of fixed capital and de-development of the area is a sufficient goal, in and of itself. Iran is plugged into the global system, it will need investments and rebuilding. This raises the rate of profit in the entire system, and sends Iran backwards in its development, delaying its growth and eliminating it as a threat. They don’t need to regime change Iran necessarily, although that would be nice, they just need to break the country like they did in Lebanon and Syria (even before Assad’s fall).
Iran is also removed from the global system through sanctions. The only nations profiting from rebuilding will be China and Russia mainly. It’s not the entire system, like it was with the other countries. This is an attempt at eliminating a threat militarily, because their attempt at doing so economically already failed.
Chinese markets right now are inextricably and deeply interwoven with western markets