A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like "in Minecraft") and comments containing it will be removed.

An image of Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, c. February, where Iranian strikes have caused substantial damage and several US soldier deaths and casualties.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preambleAfter an uncertain beginning to this second major period of hostilities, we can now see the overall plan for either side.

For the Americans, their fire has been primarily focussed on southern Iran, where they have been attempting to break Iran's control of Hormuz by a steady campaign of striking both military and civilian sites. Additionally, it looks like the US is attempting to shape the battlefield around Bandas Abbas and Qeshm Island for some kind of incursion, as we have seen bridges and tunnels in the vicinity struck by missiles. The key word there is "attempting", because there are several things wrong with this plan both tactically and strategically.

Tactically, Iran has demonstrated the ability to very quickly get their transportation infrastructure repaired, and the US simply isn't firing volleys in the required amounts - and towards the right targets (they're using several missiles on purely civilian targets, like fishing boats) - to meaningfully degrade Iranian control of even this sector of the coastline. Additionally, an amphibious assault on Qeshm Island in the style of the WW2 Pacific theater is essentially impossible unless Iran, for whatever reason, allowed it. The gauntlet that any ship holding Marines would have to run to get to the island precludes this, let alone also transporting heavy weaponry and materiel for resupply. Using helicopter-borne troops or paratroopers would be much more feasible, but runs into even greater logistical problems if the US wanted to do anything there other than a brief skirmish before withdrawing. Strategically, even if the US waved a magic wand and took Qeshm Island, it's unclear what this would do to fulfill war aims. The most obvious intention would be to trade it back to Iran in return for a major Iranian concession, but what if you take the island, you call up Iran saying "Alright, let's get this deal running! First, I want no Hormuz tolls--" and Iran just... hung up, and kept firing drones and missiles and artillery at your forces on the island until they either all died or were forced to retreat? It's not a tenable position to hold, and Iran's capabilities to affect shipping in Hormuz are obviously not all concentrated on one single island.

So, what is Iran's strategy? It's what one analyst (Amerikanets) has termed "debasification". If the first phase of the war from late February to mid-April was focussed primarily on generally destroying and disrupting the US's military infrastructure in the region, what this second phase has planned is something more like a region-wide missile advance. Starting from the Gulf states and their US bases, the plan is to push back American planes and soldiers to further and further afield bases and thereby make sorties against Iran take much more time, fuel, and use more resupply planes. Iranian strikes are, as of me writing this, concentrated on Jordan, where a recent Iranian strike caused the first admission of soldier deaths in quite some time. The Iranian goal is clearly to push back all US planes to at least the Zionist entity, by which point, unless they are withdrawn further back all the way to Europe, the planes will all be so concentrated on so few bases that it will become a physical impossibility to get them all scrambled before Iranian strikes hit. Compared to the US's strategy, Iran's is immediately bearing fruit, with US strikes already very limited in intensity compared to the first phase of the war months ago. The irony of the US breaking off negotiations - again! - to pursue a new strategy that already looks to be profoundly failing is truly some inspired stuff; the genocidal architects of American imperium in the mid-20th century are rolling in their graves.


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

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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:

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.


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[–] 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Agree that Iran isn't going anywhere. They are being extremely confident and ambitious with their rhetoric and it's not just wartime bluster. Their diplomatic are talking about reshaping the global order, having the honor of destroying the hated Yankee Empire, etc. Really the kind of talk a rising superpower like China should be saying but since the capitalist world economy is addicted to cheap energy, Iran has the ability to punch way above their weight. The timing is pretty close to perfect for them too, because America's two biggest rivals are a major energy producer and a nation leading the world in transitioning to mass renewable energy. So even if they can't do it themselves they can tolerate Iran's actions.

Egypt won't be getting hit with any missiles but this war is going to destroy the Egyptian economcy through higher energy prices. They are a major energy importer (they buy a lot from the Zionist Entity too, humiliating) and extremely sensitive to prices going up because they are already broke and struggling economically. Now with Yemen getting back in the fight and disrupting trade in the Red Sea, and prices going back up, the Egyptian regime is going to be in a very tough place soon, one they deserve for being such compradors. The US will need to bail them out, which would normally be guaranteed but with Trump, lol who knows. The miltiary regime's extreme repression won't be able to last long in a economic crisis especially if even soldiers can't get electricity and food. Egypt is a lot more fragile than it appears right now.

Though if Egypt did have a revolution (or a civil war in a worse case), I think that would be a massive shock for many other nations. Egypt is nearly as much a linchpin for the United States in the region as the Entity and the US sends them a massive amount of miltiary aid to pacify Egyptian ambitions of fighting the Entity again. If Egypt falls and the new regime is hostile to the Entity, that is going completely shake up the region politicially and diplomatically. Egypt has been the cultural center of the Arab world for a long time too, but I don't know enough about what's going on there to predict another revolutionary wave or something. I do know a Egypt-Iranian military alignment would keep Zionists up at night contemplating if it is divine judgment for their sins.

Lebanon and their sad national army are getting bullied so bad and just taking it. They have already sold themselves to western imperialism but now the Americans are basically trying to get them to kill themselves for the Entity. In response the Lebanese government has given polite explanations of why they would rather not, but they are still trying their best to please their American masters and beg for scraps like the running dogs of imperialism they are.

Because the really sad thing is that US suspended their miltiary cooperation with Lebanon earlier this year, so they aren't even getting paid for their collaboration. The US did this because Lebanon wouldn't declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization and help the Entity out with the genocide. Lindsey Graham actually had a huge role in this (lol), he literally forced Lebanon's army chief to fly to his office in DC just so he could call him a secret Hezbollah terrorist, say he should be fired, and kicked him out. According to the Prime Minister of Lebanon, that's apparently a "meeting held in a positive atmosphere".

Lebanon might start getting some aid again if the government can suitably prostrate themselves for the IOF, but if they don't get any US aid, they are totally doomed fighting Hezbollah. Hezbollah literally has higher wages than the Lebanese army and I don't think they can even reliably pay those now. All their soldiers are just going to go home or defect and take their gear with them. If they do get US aid again it will be at the cost of starting a civil war against not just Hezbollah but their own civilian population, and they aren't going to get much aid because they won't be trusted and the Entity will be undermining any agreement they make. Either way they are heading towards collapse, I truly have no idea what the government over there is thinking. Probably about trying to move to Fr*nce. The state has been truly set up for failure by outside colonial powers.

A common thread is that a lot of the states in south west asia are and have been reliant on US support to stay stable, and the cost to maintain that stability is getting a lot bigger. Trump is going to have cough up more dough or bad things will happen. Higher energy prices are also going to slaughter so many periphery and semi-periphery nations already on IMF life support. They're going to go broke and destabilize when they try to squeeze their workers. This war is going to cause conflict all over world the longer it goes on. Energy is capitalism, it can't profit without it. It will need to be replaced by labor, meaning the proletariat will become comparatively more powerful. It doesn't seem like this will be a smooth transition though, hopefully something good like global ecocommunism comes out of the chaos on the otherside, not a nuclear world war.

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