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 is of Iran's President, Pezeshkian, holding up an image mid-speech at the UN memorializing the girls and teachers killed by an American missile strike on the Minab school.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preambleThe two big international events of the last week have been the UN summit in New York, where Pezeshkian among many others gave various speeches, and the visit by Xi Jinping and various Chinese figures to the US. While it's important to never fully discount the wider diplomatic angle of the conflicts raging around the world, by this point it should be clear to most people that the fundamental disagreements are too acute to be solved or even ameliorated with words, and there are no countries in the "international community" to "convince" to come over to your side through expert oratory and rhetoric. There is now only the language of explosives, blockades, and sanctions. Pezeshkian in particular gave a reasonably good speech, but I still believe that personally flying to the country that has committed so many crimes against his own country and its allies was not the correct move, and should have been left to Araghchi. And the difference between the US's and China's material interests are separated by too wide a canyon to be bridged by words promising cooperation and partnership.

Over in Yemen, the Saudis have intensified airstrikes on Ansarallah, which continues to make slow but steady territorial gains, particularly around Taizz, and have also repelled Saudi assaults from the north. These Saudi airstrikes have hit some military infrastructure, but also a lot of civilian infrastructure, including explicitly humanitarian buildings like those supplying food. To me, this doesn't seem strategically or tactically effective, especially with so much of your own oil infrastructure in ballistic missile range, but I suppose there's not many options left for the Saudi regime. Meanwhile, the situation in Hormuz flared up on the weekend, with a record(?) number of missiles fired at ships trying to traverse the Omani route. In related news, there's been a recent tick up in sailor and marine casualties admitted by the US, indicating either that Iran scored a significant hit on a US naval vessel during its anti-ship ballistic missile strikes (and those ships have now retreated much further away, which is a data point in favour of that hypothesis, but otherwise we have no visual evidence), or that US military personnel are taking a major role in attempting to move oil through Iran's blockade by manning at least some of the tankers.

Claims that oil transits out of the Middle East have returned almost to normalcy can be trivially contradicted by third grade mathematics and the evidence of our senses: namely, increasing worldwide shortages and growing considerations for rationing diesel and other such oil products. Indeed, the potential for shortages has now risen to the extent that Trump briefly suggested an diesel export ban. However, I'll admit that the situation in Hormuz has become much harder to follow for everybody involved than it was in March and April. Nowadays, some vessels are moving through Iran's prearranged passage, there is undeniably quite a bit of oil getting out through ports that don't need to go through Hormuz like Fujairah, and meanwhile, there are theories and rumors of widely varying degrees of dubiousness of temporary arrangements of Iran not firing on vessels traversing the Omani route in exchange for such-and-such hypothetical benefits, perhaps even including Iranian oil getting mixed into some of the vessels. And on top of all of that, you have to take into account China's curious moves in the oil markets, which have substantially influenced supplies and prices since March.

In that environment, it's hard not to have at least an iota of sympathy for the tanker trackers of the world who are trying to get some concrete information while everybody makes unsupported claims. The aforementioned intensified Iranian strikes on the Omani route are a data point in favour of ships getting through when they shouldn't - otherwise, they'd have nothing to be striking, unless they're just providing enrichment and employment to any divers trying to disarm naval mines - and so we'll just have to see whether Iran will allow the current situation of a slightly leaky Hormuz to continue for reasons unknown to us, or now truly drop the hammer on illegal strait transits to put pressure on the US. The other big new item lately around Iran has been some of their airlines being sanctioned, which several countries in the region seem to be obeying, while others around the world, like China, aren't intimidated. This been of particular significance in regards to Iraq, where there have been major protests about reopening flights between Iran and Iraq, and we'll have to see where that goes next.

Perhaps little of major significance will occur in the war until the midterms are over. Nothing I've seen so far indicates to me that Democrats will put up a serious opposition to Trump's war efforts except in very particular and isolated cases, and so from a purely non-domestic, geopolitical perspective, I expect the midterm results to change nothing. Political "gridlock" and "lame duck periods" exist as illusory excuses for the general population to prevent positive things from occurring domestically; they are not hurdles that exist in reality when the American bourgeoisie all agree on a course of action, such as attempting (now in vain) to stop Iran, Russia, and China. Slightly more interesting will be the results of the Zionist elections, but only slightly. On the one hand, it would be satisfying to see the current party lose power, but on the other, it has been their sheer incompetence that has, over just a few years, led the occupation into the greatest crisis of their short history. Nothing about their domestic or foreign policy seems likely to change, as they have dug themselves too deep into the hole now. Also coming up is the Brazilian elections, where Lula is once again facing off against another Bolsonaro. I wish him the best, but I worry that the margin of victory for a non-comprador party outside the West now needs to be pretty damn high to overcome foreign voter suppression efforts and accusations of election fraud by pro-US organizations, and the current margins in the polls are not terribly encouraging by that measure.


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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[–] 36 points 1 day ago (12 children)

At this point I don't understand why the Saudis don't mobilize their entire military? Seems odd they're just sitting there taking these hits while relying on proxies to deal with Ansarallah.

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  • [–] 30 points 1 day ago*

    I'm wondering whether that would be a smart move for them. I might be prejudiced but I suspect that the Saudi military exists more to dole out oil money to privileged citizens in the form of phoney-baloney jobs rather than for actually fighting. Sending them to actual war where the other side shoots back might violate that social contract and threaten political stability. So would sending them to war and making it obvious to everyone that they're simply not a very competent or useful fighting force.

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  • [–] 32 points 1 day ago (9 children)

    Yes there is currently a weird calm before the storm. A lot of meeting between Saudi, US as well as between Saudi, Pakistan etc. Meanwhile they just keep getting pounded. What is the end game here?

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  • [–] 44 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (8 children)

    Shouldn't we consider the possibility that this is already full mobilization for them?

    They don't have a large underclass of native citizens they could trust with mass armament

    Should MBS mobilize the thousands of princes he just spent the last decade imprisoning and torturing?

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  • [–] 3 points 7 hours ago* (7 children)

    They’ve got a massive military.

    Also in the previous war with Yemen, SA only really fought one actual land battle against Ansarallah and SA won it pretty easily due to a massive overmatch of air and artillery power.

    I think the issue for SA is that yeah they probably can win the battle, if they really put their muscle into it, but that doesn’t really end up winning the war. They’d simply transform the conflict into a Vietnam-style insurgency on their doorstep.

    This is why the SA strategy has been to support the alternative Yemeni government but that strategy has fallen apart.

    Ansarallah aren’t actually making difficult demands. Basically they want oil revenue, political legitimacy & autonomy within Yemen. They aren’t even making a claim to control all of Yemen.

    It seems unlikely that SA would really commit to a multi-decade bleeding-sore type conflict over that. After all, they agreed to a truce due to this logic before.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 hours ago* (6 children)

    The Saudis have a meaningful amount of regular infantry? My understanding was the Saudi military was literally pampered princes in planes + endless mercs

    My other understanding is that the Saudis consider this conflict to be existential because of a "prophecy" or prediction from the founder of the House of Saud that only one of Yemen or Saudi could prosper

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  • [–] 1 point 3 hours ago (5 children)

    Maybe they do believe in prophecy but that sounds a little bit too glib.

    Also it doesn’t explain why they earlier did agree to some kind of truce.

    I don’t think ascribing their motivation to pure mysticism and superstition is very explanatory. I think that lacks a material basis.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 hours ago* (4 children)

    I think it's precisely because of the profound betrayal of the national material interest that it is worth considering idealist motivations for their behavior.

    I also think a perception of existential rivalry explains why they were willing to persist with an unequal treaty that they weren't upholding, then risk it all against any minor opening in their blockade

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago* (3 children)

    Right so you don’t see regional rivalry with UAE and Iran as a driver?

    It’s just some orientalist notion that a Jin said something in the desert?

    The best way to understand Saudi Arabia is to view them as pampered princes stuck in the Bronze Age?

    Great analysis.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago* (2 children)

    I think there's quite a lot of strawmanning here

    I didn't invent or conceive of the notion of the Saudi prediction/prophecy, I heard it from the cradle journalists on their podcast (I think they're basically all Lebanese)

    I don't believe you have to reach for mysticism to believe that the founder of a royal house sets the strategy and ideology for the dynasty

    I think the regional rivalry with the UAE has a ton of different implications but I don't personally think it has a good explanatory power in terms of why the Saudis would embark on this war in Yemen and continue to escalate. If anything this war has massively weakened the relative position of KSA compared to UAE and I believe that was an extremely predictable outcome

    Is the argument that there are literally thousands of princes who have likely never done a hard day of work in their lives and all have cushy government/military jobs a controversial or orientalist position?

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  • [–] 1 point 53 minutes ago* (last edited 47 minutes ago) (1 child)

    Suddenly there is a lot more nuance in your position.

    It’s not my fault you didn’t include it in your original comment.

    The SA army numbers at around 250,000. I doubt all of them are oil princes driving BMWs and Teslas.

    The military budget is about $50bn a year. The 5th largest military budget in the world. Even assuming high levels of corruption and poor investments, that still represents 300 fighter jets and bombers, and many hundreds of tanks. They have two navy fleets.

    They have a lot of military assets.

    And the one time they did go directly head to head against Ansarallah, meaning the SA military directly and not just South American mercenaries, they won the battle in a very one-sided way.

    I think this talk of desert prophecies and princes who don’t know how to tie their own shoelaces is wish casting.

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  • [–] 1 point 43 minutes ago*

    This feels like it got weirdly personal

    I have never even left the Western hemisphere, I definitely do not know or claim to know about the situation on the ground in KSA. Are you a member of the unseen class of non-royal KSA passport holders?

    I have not done any sort of extensive research on the military of KSA, but by reputation and performance in this war it is not well regarded in the region as far as I can tell. Is this the controversial position?

    The SA army numbers at around 250,000. I doubt all of them are oil princes driving BMWs and Teslas.

    I did actually ask about this in an earlier comment, happy to be wrong (depending on what percentage of this number are actual real hold-the-line/storm-the-trench infantry). I have honestly never heard anything about any Saudi infantry. Do we agree that against an ideological force like Ansar'allah it will be impossible to rely on mercenaries for infantry functions?

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