Below is my weekly summary/preamble, spoilered so that you can get down into the comments more easily.
preamble
I don't think I've ever seen a ceasefire that, for weeks, is so obviously about to be broken at any given moment and yet nonetheless continues. So-called Operation Freedom may mark a resumption of hostilities, as the US seems to once again be trying an active role in attempting to take control of the Strait of Hormuz. The initial, ridiculous claim was that the US Navy would itself be escorting ships (i.e. just getting your destroyers sunk for no reason), and as expected, this was just said to try and calm markets. Nonetheless, there is reporting that other military measures may be taken against Iran soon if they continue to keep the Strait closed, so we'll see how that all goes.
US gas prices at the pump have hit close to record high numbers, and generally the average citizen is growing mightily displeased with Trump, even those in previously safe demographics. Unfortunately, this discontent is not immediately geopolitically relevant - as both parties are staffed from top to bottom with pro-war Zionists with only a small group of exceptions, and third parties will necessarily never be allowed to take power, there is no way for US public discontent to manifest itself in a change of policy. What is more likely to cause changes in policy will be grumbling from American capitalists, of which there are many factions. The fossil fuel capitalists seem perfectly content for this situation to continue indefinitely, with record profits. I imagine the financial sector is pretty nervous, but aren't currently demanding Trump cease fire - same for the tech industry which has now been engulfed in AI, as the bubble seems to be close to, but not quite, popping. Smaller businesses and agriculture are perhaps the most likely to be crying uncle, but may have limited representation.
Going back to Western Asia, the situation from last week has remained broadly the same. The Zionist tactic in Southern Lebanon appears to essentially be "If we can't occupy this land, then you won't be able to, either," as they are doing their utmost to physically destroy as many towns and villages on the border as possible. Hezbollah's success at keeping Zionist territorial gains fairly minimal, and the growing onslaught of not only anti-tank guided missiles but also FPV drones causing chaos where the Zionists attempt to hold and advance, have, I believe, partially contributed to Iran not pushing the issue of a comprehensive ceasefire in Lebanon so far as to cause them to feel the need to resume fire on the occupied territories.
The US blockade has truly been a mixed affair. While it's obviously quite leaky and many Iranian ships are getting through, Naked Capitalism and others have pointed out that it's not just Iranian ships that are transporting goods, and that there are ~70 Chinese ships with Iranian oil that are much less willing to risk running the blockade. But, once again, the success of the blockade isn't all that relevant. Iran has experienced periods of a couple years straight without meaningful oil exports and survived, and their extensive land borders make a true siege impossible - goods can and are still pouring into the country, and with Pakistan recently allowing Iranian exports through their border, as well as the Caspian Sea in the north and Iran's railway link to China, Iranian exports can still leave just fine. Another interesting indication is that China's government has ordered Chinese businesses to ignore US sanctions against Iranian oil, so we'll see how that develops. And while the issue of maintaining sufficient public cohesion in the wake of economic suffering is a potential long term problem, we haven't yet seen any meaningful scenes of public discontent inside Iran. Internal unity appears to be staying at record levels in the face of total war.
Even being as careful as possible to check my own biases, it's difficult for me to form any other conclusion other than that Iran is winning, and people like Armchair Warlord have even pointed out that American tactical victories have been pretty minimal so far.
Last week's thread is here.
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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:
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.
China-based Earth Eye Co, MizarVision, and Changguang Satellite Technology have been sanctioned by the U.S. in recent days over allegedly assisting Iran in this year's conflict via space-based imagery
They should make this part of their marketing materials.
oh no! anyway....
Does sanctioning Chinese companies even do anything at this point? They don't have to rely on US components in their supply chain, they don't have to trade in USD, they don't have to rely on patented US technology, they don't have to hire Yankees, and they don't have to interact with Western banks at all. Those sanctions seem to be essentially ceremonial at this point.
Yeah it won’t affect these companies unless they are using western banking systems with foreign customers, but I would imagine they can easily find workarounds to that like many other Chinese firms have with Russia related sanctions.
This is why some say we might not be talking about sanctions a decade from now: the growth of the list and ability of those nations to intermingle, crypto / E-yuan payments at the Hormuz toll booth, swift alternatives, lack of credibility in the so-called "rules based order", growing acknowledgement of the inherent lethality and violence of sanctions...
This can be seen as a good thing or bad thing: on the one hand the US would no longer wield sanctions as a weapon. On the other hand it looks like they will just escalate to more brazen kinetic options as we've seen in the recent period.
Hell yeah it is
Kind of surprised they didn't do this sooner like during the hot phase. Did it take this long for their spies in China or Iran to get this information?
I’d guess it’s set up to be used as a bargaining chip for the Xi-Trump meeting that’s coming up.