Image is of a Quds Day march in Bandar Abbas, Iran.
It now seems likely that, very soon, the US and the Zionists will attempt to bomb Iran. Compared to the buildup to the Iraq War, the stated goals of such a move are being kept a little more generalized - some say the point is to overthrow the government for "humanitarian" purposes (others are more honest and want to partition Iran into a dozen powerless statelets). Some people instead say the point is to get rid of the ballistic missile program, which is synonymous with outright surrender, as no matter the deal, bombers would be en route within 10 minutes of the last batch being handed over.
Still others say that the goal is to destroy the Iranian nuclear program, which, as the thread title implies, is now in a bizarre propaganda superposition: it is apparently simultaneously true to the Trump administration that the US obliterated the nuclear facilities and set back Iran's nuclear program years, if not decades, but also that Iran is mere days away from finishing a nuke and a new round of bombing is urgently required. This obviously casts newfound doubts on how effective US weapons even are at penetrating Iran's underground facilities (though it doesn't necessarily mean they didn't breach them, as Iran was almost certainly moving nuclear material out of Fordow and other sites in the days before the Twelve Day War). The sheer quantity of US anti-air defense equipment they're shifting into position also casts doubts on whether Iran's air defense was mostly destroyed during that conflict, as those who assert that the Zionists had total air supremacy over Iran seem to be implying.
I'm not a military guy, and so I have no novel insights on how such a war is likely to go, nor do I feel confident predicting either side's victory. I'm looking at most of the same sources that you're all looking at. Some confidently boast of the total destruction of Iran's air defense within hours, allowing US planes to fly directly over Iranian cities and drop bombs en masse; others cast doubts on whether this will ever occur, and say that the US's limited supply of Tomahawk missiles is the only major firepower they will be able to safely unleash. Some say this war will last mere days before state collapse; others say months, maybe even years. I have no idea.
I do at least feel somewhat bolstered by the fact that Russia and China finally appear to be pouring in meaningful information and matériel to help Iran this time around, though of course, one can still debate whether it's enough. I feel like we are at the culmination of decades of war planning by both the US and Iran, and the result could have deep ramifications indeed.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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.
To smarter newsheads: all those planes and equipment, do they not amount to anything? Was the whole point just to intimidate Iran into not retaliating?
I know it's still very soon, but this really makes no sense to me. Could it be possible that another big player (eg Russia) warned america against being too directly involved or else? Would explain why so much stuff is just... there
Consider how many years they spent bombing Yemen and what that achieved.
Yeah it amounts to nothing.
i think it's psychological warfare and preparing for real(er) warfare, which might take weeks, months, or longer.
and importantly, it's been like 36 hours since the first strikes..
At least so far, it looks like America and Israel don't want to take any casualties, even if they could inflict a lot of damage in return for just a few jets getting shot down. Maybe they believe that Iran received some advanced defense systems from China or Russia?
Could be. Wasn't there a vague statement from Russia to America that Iran was much more prepared this time around? I remember seeing this in the newsmega
Bavar, is supposedly an s400 equivalent.
they dont have the airspace so they are launching "stand off" meaing on the edge of the Iranian Anti air defense coverage with Iran then launching the missiles from there & and they send hermes drones into the airspace launching missiles - the airplanes start from that jordan Air base mostly (all other bases are to near ) and have to be refueled to reach standoff range and return .. all that is a constant attritiong factor and it leaves iranians north east untouched by strikes while limiting there effects. And also the strikes need targets. that they are plantifully scouted and intelligence is soldit on them can be doubted ,as Iran recently wipped the mossad Network via this starlink trick , and in their oppening Salvo they bomb a girlschool ..
why is it that they are launching standoff now, but during the 12 day war they seemed to be freely entering their airspace?
12-day war they had ground sabotage teams launching RPGs into their anti-air systems, combined with a crippling cyber attack. Iran seems to have fixed both issues.
Saboteurs were launching drones from inside Iran. They have since been liquidated by Iranian COIN. I wouldn't be surprised if Pezeshkian and other reformists had been paid a visit by the IRGC since the 12-Day War and be told in no uncertain terms that if they continue their borderline trafficking with the enemy bullshit, they can join the saboteurs.
IMHO Iran underperformed during the 12-Day War due to internal enemies. And once these internal enemies have been taken care of, they are a far more effective fighting force.
There were videos of internal saboteurs taking out Irans best defenses with handheld anti-tank arms.
Also there were rumours of a network-wide cyber attack that interfered with the nodes that help connect Iran's air defenses. This was dealt with within 2 days, and then Iran started responding.
After this, internal sabatours burned piles of car tires, burned forests, and took other action around Tehran to simulate airstrikes.