My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.
preamble
As many predicted quite early on in this conflict, the US simply does not have the stockpiles nor production lines to maintain the firing rates we saw in March and April. There's at least five strictly military problems:
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Not enough interceptors to shoot down Iranian missiles, and many missiles get through regardless. This includes a dearth of interceptors in the Zionist entity proper.
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Not enough stand-off munitions to cause a real breakdown of Iran's military and society. There's enough left in the submarines and in whatever stockpiles they have mustered to give one last very serious barrage before they're just completely out (unless they start taking all their missiles out of the Pacific and Europe), but even if this is done, this shock and awe failed the first time around, and the missile cities have proven impregnable to Western military technology.
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Not enough penetration of Iranian airspace to allow a transition from stand-off bombs to their near-endless supply of glide/gravity bombs. On the edges of Iranian territory it can be possible, but doing so any further inside causes exponential risk to the bombers. Notably, Reaper drones can carry JDAMs, hence why they continue to be used so much despite how often they're getting shot down.
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Not enough naval power to reopen Hormuz. Otherwise, the US could hypothetically wait out Iran and exert economic and covert pressure to encourage political collapse; with Hormuz in Iran's hands, the US's delaying tactics favor Iran instead.
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Not enough functioning and safe bases from which to launch counterattacks. Due to debasification (a word that has now spread far and wide after Amerikanet's coining, lol), the US has been pushed back away from the Gulf. This dangerously overpopulates rear bases with planes and makes it so sortie rates are reduced due to how much distance you have to travel and how many refuelers you need per bomber.
No angry proclamations, media offensives, or tacky AI image posts can change this reality, and boy is Trump putting out a lot of that last one. This is why, after the two weeks of attacks we just saw, we see the US very reticent to try and escalate further, and Trump's threat over last weekend to really start bombing Iran did not occur. This is being reflected in the US media, with several worried articles talking about how there just aren't enough missiles to keep the conflict going much longer. One of the only options left is to use ground/special forces to do... something, though pretty much no matter what target he selects, it's hard to imagine it breaking Iran, or doing much to end the conflict, or even being a successful operation past the point where you've landed troops somewhere. We saw the "pilot rescue" (uranium heist) operation fail and aborted before the forces could even step foot off the runway they landed on.
It is into this environment that Ansarallah has suddenly declared a blockade of Saudi Arabia - an architect of the blockade of Yemen and one of the major causes of the country's internal divisions between Ansarallah and comprador groups - and is turning their ships around at the entrance to the Red Sea, thereby cutting off a good chunk of the Saudi's remaining oil exports. Ansarallah has proven they were not interested in some cautious, gradual climb up the escalation ladder; when the Saudis hit a couple Yemeni port facilities, they went ahead and hit Jazan and Yanbu so hard that the fires were still raging a day or two after the initial strikes. The US is apparently asking for the MoU back, and this time with Ansarallah also placated, but it appears Iran is much less interested in the MoU now after it was thoroughly violated by the US the first time - and if it does return to it, it might have much more hardline demands.
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:
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.
view the rest of the comments
news
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Who is going to build the railways, hospitals, maintain the medical records, the telecoms, etc?
In Iran's case the IRGC did in fact build all of that, but the IRGC is effectively parallel government for protecting the revolution.
What you are arguing against is the civilian elected government. You're arguing against the vote.
Should an advanced Marxist party form a dictatorship of the party or a dictatorship of the proletariat? The less educated masses aren't going to be as developed in their understanding, or as advanced in their theory, than members of the party.
https://hexbear.net/post/9136331 Stalin fought for dictatorship of the proletariat.
This is a debate that the Soviets had long long ago.
well seems like the soviets chose wrong considering those they voted in were traitors (Yeltsin), liberals (Gorbachev) and revisionists (Kruschev) that led to the destruction of their entire project and the deaths of tens of millions in the collapse of the USSR.
Maybe next time we force the issue for a bit longer before handing over the reins?
No I'm arguing against the civilian elected government. Regardless of vote the class interests of state beurocrats are reactionary. That's why there is an irgc in the first place to safeguard the revolution.
As you said the irgc build a lot of that, as did the traditional Islamic charities. You also saw this during covid, the executive wanted to open up, suspend the quarenteen to hold elections, have vacations, etc. the nezam wanted harsher quarentiens, started manufacturing of PPE eventually developed a vaccine.
The less educated masses can understand their interests. And in Iran's case it's not the less educated masses. It's the people who care. People who care fund and work in the nezam, sometimes partime, sometimes they donate, sometimes they make careers out of it. It's sn organic association. It works, despite having to figth the tyranny of a western style state at every turn.
Yhea and Stalin was followed by khrushev. And china is now run by revisionists. The only successful example of a one party dictatorship is north Korea, and it probably is successful, because the executive is controlled by true democratic institutions deeply embedded in the countries society and economic life.
Edit: Iran has a history of thousands of years of institutions that have survived and been polished by the test of time. Islamic law and Islamic institutions are superior to those of the European savages.
No one in the IRGC is elected? How do you ensure democracy there?
The irgc is not a solid institution, it's an amalgam of local militias and associated companies. The organization is democratic by it's very nature. They have to reach consensus before advancing, not unlike how the Chinese 1 party system works, except that it's opt in, and there is redundancy and parallel starting positions. On top of that there is a layer of Islamic scholars that are in consensus with each other embedded into it.
And the western heathen may look down on the religious aspect, but the darwinist recognized that these evolved for a reason, sacrifices and rules of conduct generate a sunk cost that makes betrayal of the revolution psychologically difficult.
This is less of a factor on the civilian government, hence why it's such a shit show.
Interesting. So you view the strategy of parallel governances to be a mistake?
Why did the ayatollahs set up the system this way then?
No, I view the parallel governments as the way to go. I view the hegemonic institutions as a product of institutional inertia, a shameful relic of the colonial era, that is getting smaller with time, unfortunately not fast enough. I think Khomeini did his best to limit the state, but there was a war going on at the time, and the revolution was not monolithic, there were very important dissenting factions, you saw it in many instance in the early 80s , when boneyads and clerics were overruled in policy decisions by the civilian government and even in courts. The state it's is own class and had considerable power back then, if anything it's a testament to the effectiveness of the nezam and the wisdom of Khomeini that the executive has weakend with time.
What benefits does the civilian government have?
Let's pretend that we aren't Iranians and are in contemporary Argentina.
We have a large segment (maybe even a majority) who is reactionary.
As soon as we start an anti-imperial revolution, we should expect to be invaded.
We need a political military force like the IRGC to draw on the advanced population as well as to organize militias from the community.
A nonpartisan military like the artesh would be an effective way of drawing on the non-advanced segments of the population as a labour-force.
A civilian government could also help to draw on that labour in other ways.
This is effective counterinsurgency. You want the reactionary segments of your population fighting to keep their jobs, rather than fighting you to stay alive.
But once you succeed in pushing off the counterrevolution, do you think that the nonpartisan military (artesh) needs to be dissolved? Do you put everything in the purview of the political military?
And of the civilian government, you only pointed out downsides. But I'm confused by your statement that you want the parallel governance to stay. What benefits do you see in it that you want to keep it? Is it also to draw on the labour of the non-advanced population?
The western style government has the benefit of force concentration. Since a thing is what it does it's main function is legibility. The world is incredibly complex, and the state works by simplifying that complexity into beurocratic rules. Enabling taxation and regulation. This can produce for very swift and effective mobilization and use of resources, a revolutionary state can easily enter a war economy, can industrialized a region etc. so at an early statge, when there is enough revolutionary seal, the state can be captured for progressive uses.
In the case of the Iranian revolution however it was a matter of expediency. Parallel institutions were formed swiftly and the growth of the state curtailed as much as posible from the begining, showing that these people were very careful, and understood the dangers of it. They also belonged to alternative institutions, so it was in their own class interests to be wary of the state from the begining. But unfortunately they were somewhat unsuccessful.
Even in the best case scenario, It has to be dealt away later, because ultimately it's interests are opposed to society at large. That's why you get the khrushevs. And this includes the military.
I am in favor of the parallel governments because I recognize that the state does tasks wich have value, and are necessary, and this sort of parallel structure is more democratic because it means these parallel governments can't form a unified class.
The revolutionary society is political, it has a revolutionary ideology. Just as the western state form and it's armies are political, they have a proto fascist ideology. Power and military service are political. You can't have politics without the use of force. A free society should have democratically run militias that work like the irgc or in a similar manner.
And how about a "well regulated militia" as the US 2nd amendment says.