Image is from this Bloomberg article, depicting world oil inventories plunging towards the operational floor at which pipelines and refineries cease operating, which is expected to occur in September at current rates.
A pretty short preamble below, in spoiler tags.
summary
The conflict continues to be kept at a relatively low level despite Iran's fiery encounters with US destroyers. I think it's only becoming increasingly obvious that the US is trying to cobble together some major clandestine operation mixing special forces, the air force, and naval destroyers to either seize Iranian uranium, take control of Iranian seaports, or both. Given a) how the Istafan op went, b) further Iranian preparations around sensitive sites, and c) a seeming strengthening of Iranian air defense around the Persian Gulf (multiple drones and manned aircraft have squawked emergency codes and potentially been shot down over the last few weeks), I find it difficult to imagine this operation fulfilling its objective, and even if did somehow work, why the removal of uranium would necessitate Iran ending the blockade and the war. On that note, I've seen reports that Iran is saying that if the US attacks their oil tankers again, they will resume firing on US military bases.
Additionally, Aragchi has stated that not only has Iran's missile/launcher stockpiles not gone down from pre-conflict, it has actually increased by 20%. This is unsurprising given the total war that Iran is now in; all resources within reason must now be funnelling towards drone and missile production.
Atrocities in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon are continuing. The toll that FPV drones are taking on the common Zionist soldiery are quickly becoming apparent, as we are receiving ever-increasing amounts of footage of vehicles and gatherings of soldiers being struck by Hezbollah's drones. The casualty situation is, as expected, being hidden, but any kind of serious occupation of even the border villages of southern Lebanon (let alone up to the Litani) seems unsustainable.
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.
https://xcancel.com/margbrennan/status/2053487330296463373
The constant "But what if we need to go to war with China?" whining from American establishment libs is hilarious. If they can't take on Iran, they're not taking on China.
honestly, with the absolute failures of strategy, tactics, readiness, logistics, production, and just general design of the US military apparatus shown in just a few short weeks of war with a state that is not even a peer, the pro-empire types should be panicking more
This was the US taking on China. Ukraine was the US taking on Russia (via proxy), and Iran is the US taking on China (via proxy).
The US is getting absolutely clapped in both. US military hegemony is over, nukes or not.
Even Ukraine was, ultimately, supposed to isolate China by forcing regime change in Russia.
I think in the case of Ukraine, the idea is literally to prolong the war and keep Russia bogged down.
Are you sure that's not Russia's idea?
Maybe, but I doubt a huge war on your front doorstep is something any state is eager to continue. Especially when attacks keep spilling over into your main territory, and there was at least one major counterattack into your main territory.
I see Russia kind of where Iran is: willing and able to fight a long war, but not trying to prolong it.
If the US wanted to turn the tide, it could do a lot more. It really seems like the idea is to support Ukraine just enough that it can put up a fight, but not win a decisive victory. It's not as if this is an unprecedented strategy.
Uhhh have you forgotten about the last 4 years? It's true the US is trying to worm its way out of supporting Ukraine now but let's not forget the US is in the situation it is now against Iran because of its failure in Ukraine. The US exhausted its inventories of reserve vehicles and conventional artillery ammunition by donating them to Ukraine. If the US thought it could have made a difference against Russia by directly intervening, they would have.
Remember how the US refused to provide any air support, or even allow European allies to provide Ukraine with advanced air assets? Even before the last election, Biden was restricting aid to Ukraine.
You mean like the 60 F16's NATO is collectively sending to Ukraine?
Just in time!
Like what?
Air support.
That seems suicidal, no?
I'm not advocating for it. I'm just saying that over the course of the conflict, the US has held back certain kinds of military aid which may have given some advantage to Ukraine.
Yeah, when the autonomous Zhuge Liang class drone factories start replicating across the People's Republic of California (PRC) and strike American bases within the Rockies Exclusion Zone the Feds are gonna need Tomahawk missiles to defend themselves.
Hey I mean it worked in Ace Combat 7
The neocon democrats of yore really need to wake the fuck up and realize that their plan for a hot war with China - resulting in a glorious endsieg - isn't happening. Unironically, the foreign policy blob's current strategy of economic strangulation and proxy wars is far more pragmatic, even if it too is doomed to failure.
Until the US nukes are gone, I feel it's premature to celebrate us military decline. America could still hold the planet hostage.
I think soon after Kelly launches his run for president - he'll float a trial balloon to the media of a 2 (2.5 maybe?) trillion dollar military budget. Trump used up all the bang-bang so - A-SAP - we gotta get new bang-bang and even more while we're at it. And that'll let China know who wears the Big Boy Pants.