This week's summary of the situation is in spoiler tags below:
preamble
Diplomacy between Iran and the US has begun in... perhaps not earnest, but it's certainly started. Iran's very reasonable requirement that the Zionist occupation stop ethnically cleansing Lebanon and withdraw has caused a great deal of consternation throughout their population, and several analysts have suggested that Netanyahu being forced to accept Trump's (and therefore Iran's) demands spells the end of his leadership in the coming elections; then, the occupation is expected to "mellow out" and the conflicts and genocides slow and stop. This view is only really impactful if you believe that, rather than the US and Zionists being in a strongly mutually beneficial relationship based on geopolitical, financial, and clandestine goals, that instead Netanyahu is a devious mastermind bending any and all in the US to his whims. I don't believe this; and, if anything, the events of at least the last three years prove that he's really quite stupid, with "Israel" being in its worst position in decades under his rule.
Nonetheless, Iran has made the issue of Lebanon a not-quite-red-line (an orange line?). It hasn't stopped them from going to Switzerland and beginning negotiations, but they still want to strongly express their discontent by harnessing the newfound superweapon that is Hormuz. Similarly, threats by Trump and others to restart the war if Iran doesn't bend to their whims have been met with formal stoppages of negotiations, but it appears technical teams are still talking to each other and working things out. Trump's threats are fairly idle at this point because most in the US military must know that there's essentially zero effective military actions left to them with their current munition stockpiles.
Trump let slip that the US has about 3-4 weeks of oil reserves left, which aligns moderately well with the projections of analysts like Yves at Naked Capitalism (it's now expected in late July rather than early July as was originally forecasted months ago). This means that even if the negotiation process goes off without a hitch, that there's going to be a period of at least a few weeks where the US is out of reserves but is waiting for new shipments of oil to physically traverse the distance between Hormuz and the US continent. And many analysts have pointed out that it's going to be a long time - at least a few months, and perhaps more like 9 to 12 - before Hormuz flows pick up to pre-war levels, due to logistics companies and insurance companies wanting to be sure that their property isn't going to be blown up mid-transit. Regardless, the fact that the timetable is now so tight could indicate that the Trump admin has finally realized that it cannot outbluff and outwait Iran, and will give them a good deal out of necessity, even if this means forcing their unsinkable aircraft carrier to stop bombing children for five consecutive minutes.
However, there is a palpable anxiety throughout Iran right now, especially due to controversy over the degree to which Khamenei actually agreed with the current course of events. This does seem to be confirmed by his wording (to paraphrase): "In principle, I took a different view, but allowed the President to proceed." Many inside Iran now have more fear that their politicians will not push hard enough for a good deal than that they'll return to war, with all that may imply. This isn't an unfounded fear, especially given how suddenly the 12 Day War ended despite Iran's strengths being medium-and-long-term attrition (now confirmed by this latest war). This is one of those events that reveals how the Supreme Leader in fact doesn't have complete dictatorial power unlike how he's conceived of in much of the West, and that even during existential wars, major concessions have to be made to democratically elected leaders. Though, this could also be a clever move to shift blame explicitly onto the Reformist elements if the deal collapses.
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.
So it keeps being said. But we are through the looking glass. What matters is what the markets say matter. People keep screaming "MATERIAL REALITY" as if the only oil in the world comes from this region. The material reality is someone will suffer eventually BUT that someone need not be the western bourgeoisie or the US empire project who are the ones the decisions come from and whose interests they respect.
Let me give a contrary possibility to the shouts of inevitable imminent victory so often echoed here.
Click to read this idea that maybe we're not so correct on what is and isn't inevitable
It could very well be that someone who eventually suffers is the punching bag of Europe who is a glutton for being beaten by the US ever harder and at this point I think has a zero percent chance of breaking with the US this 2/3rds of a century given they correctly understand that for white supremacy and western capitalism (that includes them) and western liberalism to remain hegemonic and not go into terminal decline they have no choice but to join with the US. There is simply no one else to carry out the task with and they cannot do it on their own. As well as that someone being Africa, Latin America, the global south as usual being shafted with extremely high prices, shortages, etc which China will feel compelled to attempt to make up for in ways beyond solar which stands a chance of getting China to share and draw down its own reserves to keep its trading partners and future potential alive against this US-led onslaught which to the US would put China in a weaker position for a conflict they intend to instigate in the next 4 years along with their control of flows of Venezuelan oil, seizing Greenland, seizing key waterways for transit, etc. The Iran blockade by the US has been a practice run for turning off the tap to China and it seems to have gone reasonably well with their satellites, electronic surveillance, AI and so on tracking ship movements and preventing much in the way of successful blockade running once the US chose to tighten the noose. The US loves practice runs and this has given them a great one.Fact is the US is able to smuggle some ships through. The problem for the US (assuming the bourgeoisie don't give a fuck about gas prices or ready supply for Americans which they might not) was always small quantities (compared to oil) of related refined non-fuel products that have bottlenecks in the region and their Oman shipping lane I presume allows enough to get through to likely keep them happy there. Yes there's the fertilizer thing but the US has tons of natural gas and is a net food exporter so if anyone is going to starve it will be the global south who can't get their fertilizer and if some American crops don't get planted probably can't get American food imports.
So it'll hit the global south who the western bourgeoisie want to hurt. It'll hit Europe who the western bourgeoisie may want to discipline for their high living standards and drive them towards open reaction in the next few elections. It'll hit the American proletariat who they also would like to discipline and leave in a more precarious situation so as to be less uppity. And on top of that they are convinced sooner or later AI will massively reduce the amount of humans they need working which creates a dangerous unused surplus that must be disposed of or liquidated in some way. If they can start committing mass social murder under the guise of war-induced shortages all the better to their minds. Additionally shortages may help accelerate the justification for deploying the complete police state and total AI-assisted lockdown which has been rolling out slowly with things like Palantir, Flock, etc but which could be turbocharged with more deployments and harsher sentencing. You create a situation of petty crime out of desperation and like the 90s you create a weary, tired population willing to embrace the police state and tough on crime which allows more freedom of movement for controlling the proletariat and liquidating or enslaving portions of it.
Even if Trump is getting ready to surrender and these strikes are his last effort at looking tough and a winner who forced Iran to do this or that with the comprador regime in Lebanon signing away its land to the zionist entity it is more clear than ever that the zionist entity has no intention of respecting the Iranian provisions.
So IMO the only thing to do is to continue the missile strikes as the US will keep the zionist entity afloat and well supplied so trying to starve them into submission with the strait closure or global economy troubles is I feel a losing proposition. In other words I would not be so sure. I hope I'm wrong and it all goes wrong for the US and everything crumbles next month but the longer this continues the more it seems like a game the US isn't that weary of. Anyways all the predictions say within a few weeks so by the end of July, beginning August at the latest we'll know for sure. Unless they get to keep on punting as Iran seems happy to let them do. In which case we could have a back and forth on will it or won't it for quite some time as with the Ukraine debacle.
No-one here is shouting of "imminent victory", we're just acknowledging the facts of imperial decline - that doesn't mean the empire is out tomorrow, this will be a long and gradual process. You seem to be, for whatever reason, starting from an assumed outcome of "the US is going to make it out of this just fine", which leads to you twisting yourself into takes like "being cut off from Middle Eastern oil isn't a big deal actually".
Uh... no? Like, what can I even say about this?
A substantial amount of the oil comes from this region, and it is not easily replaced. The US's own oil industry is not set up to process its own oil, due to a variety of historical and economic factors, so the US cannot survive without substantial oil imports, even as it exports lots of oil - because these are different kinds of oil.
Instigate a conflict with what munitions? The US has expended a tremendous amount of resources, especially air defense munitions which would be quite important. Plus, this war has very specifically demonstrated the vulnerability of US bases. Now, this has been known for a while to people paying attention, but at least there was a string of cope that with their superior ISR and airforce, the US could actually successfully find and destroy the launchers (unlike previous efforts against Iraqi Scuds or in Yugoslavia) fast enough to avoid getting its bases wiped right away, and then keep destroying them and win the attritional trade over the long run - this conflict has shown that notion to be rather optimistic. And China has missile and drone production capacities on a whole another level compared to Iran, as well as a much denser air defense network, and a substantial (and growing) airforce which could much better contest the skies against the Americans, as well as allow the PLAAF to launch munitions at American assets from closer ranges.
Like, genuinely, I'm not sure how to even argue with you at this point, our standpoints on American military capabilities are basically putting us in completely different worlds. Again, you're starting from a preconceived notion that the US would just win an armed conflict by default, which might have at least had some arguments for it before this war, but at this point, basically everything about the doctrine the US would apply against China has been shown to be deeply flawed.
if you're going to dismiss our shouts of "material reality", okay, present your own material analysis for how the US could possibly prosecute a war against China.
The Venezuelan oil industry is not even remotely capable of making up for the shortfall of the loss of Middle Eastern oil. The industries here are on completely different scales, it would take years if not decades of investment into Venezuelan oil infrastructure for such a thing to happen.
With what navy? The US is barely managing to control one waterway by running basically all of their active carriers ragged! Which is going to leave those carriers unable to participate in any subsequently planned conflicts against China since they'll be out for maintenance for a long while. Again, you're starting from the standpoint of "the US would just be able to control all the waterways" without in any way interrogating the state of their military capabilities.
The geographic reality of blockading Hormuz and blockading China is radically different. And, China has very specifically planned for this scenario and built up the capabilities to contest the US - see this thread. You seem to be thinking this is still the China of the '90s, and not a technologically sophisticated country with its own substantial navy and shipbuilding capacity far beyond the US.
The US blockade has also not actually been anywhere near as effective as you seem to think.
Uh... no. Again, not sure how to even approach this argument. The economy runs on fuel - for industry to produce goods, they need raw materials, which are transported to them, by vehicles, that, you know, burn fuel. Those goods then need to go somewhere - which again burns fuel. Gas prices going up isn't something that just affects the plebs, the entire economy grinds down if stuff can't be transported back-and-forth economically, which will affect the bourgeoisie given how much they consume. And to go back to one of the above arguments - how exactly do you expect the US to prosecute a massive expeditionary war far away from home without fuel?
This has not been correct for a couple of years now (https://archive.ph/mQvPb). Now, technically the net food importer status comes from the domestic market demanding a variety of products - if the entire US population agreed to subsist on some kind of post-apocalyptic-style corn/soy-slop, the country might be able to handle it, but I don't see that going over well domestically. And agricultural production is in no way going to switch over to producing nutritionally necessary staples in the needed quantities quick enough.
If the US was the Soviet Union, it may be able to centrally plan and ration its way out of disaster. It is not, and there is no indication whatsoever that the US government would be able to pull off even a modicum of such an effort. They can't even build a fucking bridge.
The US agricultural industry is among those who can't get their fertilizer (https://archive.ph/csJyJ).
I mean... if the US decides to, uh, just execute its laborforce, then... good? I mean, obviously horrible for all the people who're going to die, but, uh, the empire completely willingly collapsing itself through the sheer idiocy of its ruling class would be a pretty good outcome.
Again, I'm not sure how you're coming to this position. I assume, or at least hope, you personally don't believe AI is going to actually be able to replace all these jobs, you're just giving that as an example of something the elites believe - and, well, all power to them, the empire kind of fucking needs a functioning economy, and if they take brazen actions to destroy it from within, this is... obviously not a victory for the empire?
I wake up. There is another darkcalling comment where she acts like the US stock market is the center of the universe and actively disparages the idea of looking at material conditions.
I stopped taking her seriously after she said Palestine Action shouldn't have gone on hunger strike. Apparently, they should've just sat quietly in prison eating their prison chow like good obedient prisoners.
@DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml @Boise_Idaho@hexbear.net
You can think someone's wrong without mocking them on a small website where the same people are here every week.
Also, if people are afraid to be wrong it just dumbs down discussion. The back-and-forth is what develops arguments. Take Tervell's response to darkcalling above. Without darkcalling's comment, Tervell would not have written it.
Not trying to be dramatic with the double ping, just didn't want to comment twice
The mockery came after people have already tried to point out the lack of material analysis in her arguments in the past. I'm not arguing for people to stop discussing things, but when putting an idea out there, people do need to be ready for different responses, including responses they wouldn't want to see. I'm not saying reasonable responses shouldn't happen, but sometimes we do mock people.
Had I not been mocked in the past for my lack of materialist thinking, while thinking I was the biggest materialism understander around, I'd still be a dumbass "left-lib" type who is probably frothing at the mouth with rage about a million dead Iranian protesters and slobbering zucchini all over the place, making sure I get my five minutes of hate in each morning for the bad guy countries. Sometimes, purely intellectual critique doesn't work, especially when it is idealist thinking masquerading as materialist thinking. We are all very good at convincing ourselves that our opinions are fact, no matter how disconnected from material reality they are, and you can't really logic someone out of a position they didn't logic themselves into.
I get frustrated when I see someone who time and time again, seems to be blinkering themselves and hyper-focusing on worrying about their understanding of a situation, and refusing to examine alternatives or additional information. Doomerism isn't clarity and carefully considered pessimistic analysis, it's depression disguised as analysis, encouraging only inaction. Which is why I made that joke about "Doomer Mao" because I do wholeheartedly believe that this kind of thinking is both a complete dead end for any socialist movement and absolutely rampant within the western left. I do tend to overreact when I see it here, since I often have to deal with it irl as well. It is something to be fought against, hard. It causes the death of groups, of movements, of socialism. It's learned helplessness.
To make sure my tone is completely clear for this next part; I'm not trying to rile you up or upset you, I'm genuinely and sincerely asking your opinion: What would you recommend instead of a snarky comment, assuming I don't have the time or the patience to address every point they make like someone like Travell does? If you think that the mean comments are really unhelpful, let me know an alternative and I'll try doing that, even if that alternative is literally just "don't make the mean comments about fellow hexbear users". If I can't self-crit, it's a bit hypocritical of me to insist others should.
Her comment was completely unnecessary and absolutely worthy of mockery and contempt. "Lol, why would they waste time with a hunger strike that would fail anyways?" I'm sorry Palestine Action aren't resourceful enough to smuggle in assault rifles to break out of jail while no-scoping British prison guards like some FPS. We're talking about a massive coordinated hunger strike between multiple prisoners from multiple prisons in solidarity with Palestine Action, and by extension Palestine, and her "analysis" amounted nothing more than "Those prisoners are stoopid. It won't work anyways."
And people who followed the story know that the hunger strike did work. So much for being able to "definitely get away with force-feeding these people."
She didn't say "lol," she didn't trivialize those people, she called them brave. She voiced a personal theory about when hunger strikes do and don't work and made a prediction that the strikes would fail, then Awoo offered a fairly compelling rebuttal, and that was the end of the thread. A discussion happened. Both got around 30 upvotes, which means that, as of 6 months ago, the site had no strong consensus against what darkcalling said, and therefore the exchange was probably useful to someone.
People are wrong sometimes on this site and that's okay. We're all here to learn and no one has all the answers.
Darkcalling, in particular, I think makes a conscious effort to voice pessimistic takes to round out discussion. I don't know her reason, but some people do that in an effort to protect their peer-group in threatening times. I don't get the impression she's some gloating, contemptuous cynic. She responded graciously to Tervell's criticisms earlier today.
We talk about difficult topics, it's challenging terrain for a social forum. I think sometimes we have to cut each other some slack.
I can understand the logic there, but as everyone in that thread pointed out, it relies on a massive assumption, that the all-powerful bourgeoisie are the only ones whose opinions matter. Which I think is the heart of doomerism. The working class is powerless because the bourgeoisie are too strong and there is nothing to be done. Protests against them are pointless because they don't care, with the (presumably unintended) assumption that the working class's opinion on things doesn't matter, and not even considering that the working class are a force capable of doing anything at all. Just obsession over the power of the ruling class and treating it as so utterly absolute, history is so completely over, that the working class doesn't matter anymore, only the whims of a few rich bastards.
Could you imagine if an actual revolutionary figure was a doomer? Their revolutions would've never worked out. Like imagine Doomer Mao. "Oh, this long march thing is impossible, we could never walk that far with the KMT breathing down our necks, they have a much bigger and stronger military than we do anyway, so even if we did reach our destination, we don't stand a chance against them, might as well not even bother."
Good response and some good points. However, there is too much we don't know (including what is coming down the pipe), too much based off of unreliable "analysis" channels without access to real detailed information often just spitballing or pulling things out of their ass (this includes business-guy forecasts of doom), too much taking the empire entirely at their word and assuming the worst case scenario based off vague statements, and so on. That's why I can't put total stock in this narrative of hope and locked-in, in-escapable demise for the worst empire the world has ever known that has shown a dramatic ability to reshape the world and move mountains and repeatedly do the impossible due to its size, and various forms of might including capital. (That and most of its enemies are incompetents not run by scientific socialists who I believe have that power incompetents do to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory)
I never said that, please don't put those words in my mouth. Iran has proven the US cannot just win any armed conflict. The thing is Iran is an unmoveable object, people often ascribe the US as an unstoppable force but I would say it's an unmoveable object too and that's the problem given its control of global shipping straits, land air and naval bases, etc. China can devastate US presence in the SCS and push them out but they don't have force projection to push them out of Diego Garcia or Somaliland or Greenland or the Panama Canal. US plans IMO will probably avoid or limit kinetic direct hot war with China and rely on hybrid war as they did with the USSR which would avoid any rapid depletion of missile stocks. I think we should not underestimate their abilities or their sadism and depravity nor their ability for self-deceit (nor their ability to recover from that anyways).
Intellectual pessimism is tasked to us. The will must have optimism, but the intellect remain pondering bad outcomes and possibilities and preparing to live with them and keep moving onwards. I hope you keep moving onwards comrade, no matter what.
Yeah, I agree this is important, and different from doomerism
A doomer is too sure of defeat and too resigned to it emotionally. But the possibility is still worth discussing and gaming out. It's just a stressful topic because we're bystanders; it's like watching a sledgehammer swing toward your head and debating if it'll hit. But that's part of why we come here. I think discussion benefits if we're open-minded and able to entertain an idea.
A line I keep hearing from World Cup announcers is "good teams find ways to win, bad teams find ways to lose."
The US, although in decline, has a long history of "finding ways to win." Maybe not this time, but it's worth discussing.
Great response!