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.

Image depicts the aftermath of a Yemeni missile impacting King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preambleIt's been a much slower week than last week, consisting mainly of consolidation and (so far, empty) threats.

In Yemen, Ansarallah continues to battle Saudi-backed mercenary groups. Gains have been relatively slower compared to the lightning offensive earlier that took the western coastline, which makes sense with all the new territory they have to administer and generally sort out, including fortifying towns and cities against potential Saudi assaults from the north. The biggest news so far has been Trump apparently being on the verge of striking Yemen over the weekend due to Saudi insistence, to the extent that embassies across the region issued alerts warning that they might soon be attacked, but then deciding not to when people in his administration told him not to. I haven't cared for Trump's theatrics for several months now, so I won't care to speculate whether this is a bluff or a double bluff and so on; all I will say is that a couple years ago, a significantly stronger US military tried and failed to dislodge Ansarallah's control of the Red Sea, and that this time, they even seem willing to hit Saudi oil facilities in response.

On that note, diesel continues to break new price records, and gasoline isn't too far behind it. Outright shortages haven't yet become systemic, as tempting as it is to look at a couple gas stations running out and drawing trend lines from there, but it's certainly going to be where we're headed if there isn't a diesel export ban eventually, which Russia and others have already implemented. A ban would somewhat alleviate US price hikes, but would cause major instability throughout the rest of the world due to the ubiquity of diesel in transportation infrastructure, and if you've created a favourable international order over the past century or so, you really don't want to blow it up.

Next up: Poland's been amping up their anti-Russian rhetoric to new heights lately, joining Germany and others in advocating for further aid to Ukraine and the creation of modern national armies in Europe to send into Ukraine to battle Russia directly. This type of thing would have been rather frightening to me back in 2023 and 2024, but at this point, all I can do is shake my head. We all saw how the US military, which is more powerful than yours, has faired against Iran, which is weaker than Russia - and you want to arm yourself with largely American weapon systems, or at least systems heavily inspired by the American MIC? Lol. Lmao, even.

Lastly for today, Trump seems to have taken a victory lap over their more-or-less annexation of Greenland after Denmark permitted it. As I and many others noted back when this was all over the media initially months ago, the US has had a military base there for decades already and has been investing in mining there too for a while, so this is more of a formalization of the de facto status quo. Denmark previously technically had a veto on US military activity there, but now seems to be gone; after all, there is little chance that Denmark would ever have the courage to actually use said veto anyway at this point. So, geopolitically, it's a fairly minor news item that serves mainly as yet another humiliation for Europe in a long chain that stretches far into the past and continues to stretch into the future. For the Greenlanders themselves, however, this does seem like pretty catastrophic news, with any and all non-US foreign investment (such as by China) likely to be cut.

(and as a postscript here just before I hit post: yes, the Iranian president physically travelling to the US is embarrassing for Iran and very embarrassing for him. at least Araghchi going makes sense given he's the foreign minister. the silver lining of this debacle might be a further discrediting of the non-hardliner side?)


Last week's thread 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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[–] 60 points 15 hours ago (23 children)

Trump: "I'm rejecting their deal. They want to make a deal where they open the strait immediately ... we're winning tremendously. We have total control of the Hormuz Strait ... that deal would not be acceptable. They want to immediately open the Hormuz Strait."

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mwgkq2kkf32g

46s vid

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  • [–] 40 points 15 hours ago (18 children)

    I think this is another case of Trump saying the quiet part out loud, or at least implying it. They don't want the straits fully open. They want to block oil going to China.

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  • [–] 32 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (10 children)

    I don't think it's that per se, because the US military provides escort for oil tankers heading to China through the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Gulf of Oman every night and during the day now. It's more that any deal which involves going back to the MoU, which this deal was centred on, is dead on arrival because current oil outflow matches MOU levels if Iranian oil export during the MoU is excluded. What is the incentive there on the US side if outflows look like this, 13.5 million barrels per day on a 7 day average currently?

    Source

    That peak in the middle is the MoU, with Iranian outflows in dark blue at the bottom. Why would the USA go back to the MoU if they can achieve the same results without it, and without Iran exporting oil? Iran could export during the MoU, they cannot now. Yes there is substantially increased cost and risk, but that is not going to go to zero over a 7 day deal. If the deal is going to work by Iran offering something in exchange for the USA offering something, Iran is going to have to offer up more than the MoU did on the Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, oil flows much closer to pre war levels for instance. I question if that's even possible, it's not something either the US or Iran can guarantee. Cooperation between both the parties buying and selling oil would be needed to ensure demand and supply is sufficient for a "re opening" to pre war levels.

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  • [–] 12 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 child)

    the US military provides escort for oil tankers heading to China through the Persian Gulf,

    i beg your pardon?

    edit: the saudi side you'd expect to see decline given the ansarallah attacks

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  • [–] 15 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

    Saudi Arabia shifted to loading ships on their east coast in the Persian Gulf after the east-west pipeline got shut down by attacks, utilising this US escort scheme. Above graph does not include the Red Sea, which is why it looks like Saudi Arabia went from nothing to a lot. China is a big buyer of Saudi oil, and from other Gulf states too

    Satellite images of tankers off the Saudi Arabian east coast, each tanker identified

    This is a useful website to see exactly which crude oil tankers are transiting per week, China had 7 of the 56 last week

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  • [–] 17 points 12 hours ago (1 child)

    What is the incentive there on the US side

    an unsustainable SPR draw rate

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  • [–] 14 points 9 hours ago*

    But going back to MoU rates of oil outflow doesn't fix that, because we are there already, matching MoU rates, and the energy crisis is still where it is. Oil outflow would need to be significantly closer to pre war levels than now/the MoU. I question if that's even possible for Iran to offer as a concession in a deal (in exchange for concessions from the US) or for the US to achieve militarily. Even if the Strait was "fully open" tomorrow, there has to be adequate supply and demand to go back to 20+ million barrels of oil per day transiting.

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  • [–] 8 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

    well yes, they continue looting not mined the strait award.

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  • [–] 8 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 child)

    I'm pretty sure Iran mined the Strait at the start of the war, that's the whole point of the Iranian controlled corridor, mining the waters outside of it so ships have to use the Iranian corridor. It's just that the US can also de-mine it, even if it took them months, they appear to have demined a corridor close to the coast of Oman.

    Also for the UAE to export, they don't need to transit the Strait, due to favorable geography. This is why the UAE was initially so supportive of US military escort for oil tankers, and Saudi Arabia initially against it.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 hours ago

    you launch drones with appropriate buyoancy and metal detector triggers shrug-outta-hecks what i find troubling is that iran has been aurafarming closed strait despite it being kinda working, which is either delusion or kayfabe

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  • [–] 14 points 13 hours ago* (1 child)

    Once the proxy war in Asia begins, the US will instantly revoke those escorts. But ideally the US wants to puppet Iran and control the entire Middle East before that happens. Then they can close Suez, Hormuz, and Bab al-Mandeb entirely to Chinese shipping.

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  • [–] 9 points 7 hours ago

    Yep it's all about control of strategic choke points.

    US may not have or get back manufacturing but China needs other countries to sell to and if US can slap a check point that can act as a blockade or toll booth on all the major global waterways then it has significant leverage against China. Even better if it can choke off their supply of oil, minerals, etc to control both inputs and outputs of China's manufacturing economy. We see it with Trump's talk about Panama Canal, Greenland (northern route control), aggression against Russia and interdiction of Russian shipping/sanctions on that (northern route control), then all the other areas they already have choke points on. China's choice is basically fight a painful and disadvantageous long-range naval and air war against an enemy that can just deploy cheap suicide drones to do the job for them which can quickly escalate into a full out war with the US that China won't willingly walk into, accept US terms and be subordinated, or relinquish global manufacturing might and reorient their economy through the pain while the US guides where that moving of industry goes. At least I would surmise something like that is the thinking of US planners. Plan is not going great so far as we see with China's retaliation to Trump's moves but I wouldn't underestimate the way things will go for the US as the US still has most of the world in their corner and a lot of momentum. China needs to move with care and great purpose.

    At the very least if US cannot beat of contain China they want a veto on what they can sell or buy from Europe and to decide the terms including payments to the US of such business to maintain their sphere of influence and vassalization of Europe.

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  • [–] 12 points 13 hours ago

    How much of this flow is due to backi-channel agreements between the US/China/Iran vs Iran's limited capability to hit US boats with their anti-ship missiles? Curious if it's a capabilities issue or if China is trying to prevent the global economy from blowing up. Love your analysis as always.

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  • [–] 16 points 14 hours ago (6 children)

    I thought trump was besties with Xi now

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  • [–] 19 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (5 children)

    There are plenty of libs who actually believe that.

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  • [–] 16 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

    Well I read a tweet that says it's true so you're just a communist misinformation

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