Image is of a destroyed American AWACS plane in Saudi Arabia, of which there is a very limited supply and each of which is enormously expensive both monetarily and in terms of components. Iran hit this with a precision drone strike that likely cost ~$20,000.
I don't have much to add from the last megathread description. This isn't to say that nothing has happened or has changed since then - decades are still happening in weeks - but the general flow of the war is remaining the same. Trump sometimes threatens to open the Strait with troops and flatten Iran to rubble, and other times threatens that he's gonna back off and let other countries handle it if they really want little trifles like "fuel" and "energy" so much. Iran continues to strike across the Middle East. The West continues to bomb civilian infrastructure due to their relative inability to affect the missile cities. In all: things are generally getting worse for America and the Zionists.
April is the month where the last ships that left Hormuz before it was closed will arrive around the world, so the last month of economic turmoil has been a mere prelude to what's going to occur in the near-future. The silver lining is that Iran appears to be formalizing the new state of affairs in Hormuz, creating a rial-based toll to allow passage between a pair of Iranian-controlled islands where they can be monitored, meaning that, as long as the US doesn't do something exceptionally stupid, the global energy crisis may "only" last a couple years instead of simply being the new reality from now on. Some countries have already agreed to this arrangement, and others will inevitably follow despite their consternation as their economies increasingly suffer.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
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.
Looks like Trump just capitulated to prevent a hardcore economic meltdown in the US. Iran won the war:
https://www.rt.com/news/637586-us-strikes-irans-kharg-island-live/
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Some of this appears blatantly impossible. Reparations? Where is the money going to even come from? Is trump gonna mint a trillion dollar coin to give to iran
If Trump did actually agree to these 10 points, then Katie bar the door because no way I believe the US will honor this and Trump is just saying yes to everything to buy time for an invasion.
But I also trust Iran, I think what they’ve accomplished over the last 5 weeks has earned our benefit of the doubt.
I think the fact this is coming a few days after what's looking like a badly failed air-drop invasion makes it plausible the US actually got desperate and made some concessions we haven't heard about quite yet.
I want to wait for a day and see what else comes out but I think a benefit of the doubt is warranted too.
Yes, I believe that’s it.
He’s securing an extremely short-term political victory and is going to come up with explaining it on the fly and probably just go back to fighting within a couple of weeks (or days).
Some people here are theorizing that the plan is to accuse Iran of “breaking the ceasefire” when the US/zionists inevitably break it themselves. I don’t think that will work, however, because he’s already openly referred to Iran’s ten points in his Truth Social, and he’s going to get asked by the media probably as soon as tomorrow on how he intends on how to follow through on any of this, in which he will probably reply “we’re looking into it.”
I’m very skeptical towards Iran accepting this, but now that I think about it, there’s some plausibility for the idea that Iran will be able to use this to score political points down the line from here. Only time will tell. I think it’s bullshit that Iran didn’t extract any concessions for Lebanon but whatever maybe they already quietly assume none of this will actually happen and are ready to humiliate the US/israelis further once this breaks down
I thought one of the points involved ceasing hostilities against the Axis of Resistance on all fronts, which I assume would include southern Lebanon, no?
They agreed to use the 10 points as a BASIS for negotiation without outright dismissing them. They're going to try and weasel the actual wording and implementation of the agreement to give Iran as little as possible. Sanctions relief definitely possible, return of sanctioned assets as well. Closing some US bases maybe not but all. No way US enshrines this in a UN resolution.
Perhaps he'll redirect Israel's annual stipend lmao
i'll be honest. it just sounds like cope. we've seen the results of these temporary ceasefires before. all they do is allow us/israel to rearm and attack again when convenient. Plus, iran will open up hormuz during the ceasefire, too. it's just...bad all around. they caved, there's no other way to look at it.
Never in my life have I seen anything like the Ramadan war. If your point of comparison is “well at some point they stopped” then I don’t know what to say. We know too little at this point, there is reason to be wary but giving in to doomerism is not the way.
It’s the middle of the night here and I need to (try and) get back to sleep, but I think it’s worth diving into the chain of events over the last few days. After what appears to have been a failed attempt to exfiltrate Irans enriched uranium, the US delivered an unhinged nuclear and genocidal threat. Closely following this Pakistan, a nuclear armed regional player, delivers Irans 10 point plan and is claimed to have brokered the ceasefire, which the US is (pretending?) to accept.
Maybe the big satan really want to use that time to regroup and try again, but I fail to see how that can be described as Iran backing down and not the US.
lol no way Trump is taking that list seriously, this is a waste of good pressure