Image is of destruction and damage inside Israel, sourced from this article.
Iran and Israel have struck each other many times over the last few days. There has been a general focus on military facilities and headquarters by both sides, though Israel has also struck oil facilities, civilian structures and hospitals, and in return for this, Iran has struck major scientific centers and the Haifa oil facilities.
Israel appears to have three main aims. First, to collapse the Iranian state, either through shock and breakdown by killing enough senior officials, or via some sort of internal military coup. Second, to try and destroy Iranian nuclear sites and underground missile cities, or at least to paralyze them long enough to achieve the first and third goals. And third, to bring the US into a direct conflict with Iran. This is because the US better equipped to fight them than Israel is (though victory would still not be guaranteed depending on what Iran chooses to do).
Iranian nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground (800 meters), far beyond the depth range of even the most powerful bunker busters (~70 meters or so), and built such that the visible ground entrances are horizontally far away in an unknown direction from the actual underground chambers. Only an extremely competent full-scale American bombing force all simultaneously using multiple of the most powerful conventional (perhaps even nuclear) bunker busters could even hypothetically hope to breach them (and we have seen how, in practice, American bunker busters have largely failed to impair or deter Ansarallah). There are several analysts on both sides who have concluded that it is entirely impossible to physically prevent Iran from building nukes.
I fully expect the US to join the war. I believe the current ambiguity is a deliberate invention of the US while they work to move their military assets into position, and as soon as they are ready, the US will start bombing Iran. After that, Iran’s leadership must - if they haven’t already - harden their hearts, and strike back with no fear, or risk following the path of Libya, Syria, and Iraq, either into either surrender, occupation, or annihilation. Every day where they do not possess a nuke is a day where lives are being lost and cities are being bombed.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s 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.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
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.
Russia ready to mediate Iran–Israel war, offers to take in Tehran’s enriched uranium – the cradle
How about instead you give Iran a nuke and make it clear you will aid Iran if the USA joins? If Russia made it clear that US direct involvement means Iran gets a nuke immediately then this would all deescalate very quickly. Why can’t Putin make that bluff?
always remember that Putin is a liberal who would have happily joined the west if they weren’t so racist.
Everyone needs to remember that this situation is extremely dangerous. Having Russia give Iran a nuke, while based ofc, is definitely gonna be a huge escalation that could mean intensification in both Ukraine, and Iran, and considering where we are at, it might not be the best of ideas.
This might be true, but it’s getting really fucking annoying for every single thing a Western power does to be fully backed by every member state and given a quadrillion dollars by the US, meanwhile for every thing an anti-imperialist power does, it’s like “Okay, well, we know China won’t do literally fucking anything, Russia’s too busy in Ukraine, this guy’s too isolated, this guy’s in an election year, this guy…”
Israel could nuke Iran tomorrow and the US would be like “Well, Iran committed violence against that nuke and it had the right to defend itself by blowing up in Tehran, we call on Iran’s leadership to negotiate if they wish to stop being nuked.” Macron would probably be like “I think this is uh, le bad, and we should stop sending you le weapons” and then Netanyahu would threaten him with blackmail images of him having an affair or something and then he’d shut up; same for all the other European leaders.
Meanwhile I can’t even be 100% certain that China/Russia would even cut off trade with Israel if that happened to Iran, let alone trade/smuggle in a shitload of military supplies and shit to help Iran out. Because we and they all know that Israel is actively committing genocide and invading and bombing countries, and China hasn’t done anything meaningful to counter Israel economically despite those things very obviously being against the rules-based world order that they love to trumpet about being the true supporters of unlike the US, so can we certainly say that a nuke would prompt them to action? Or would they write a strongly worded letter to the UN and then just go about their day like they have with every atrocity so far?
Because the us is an empire. The known political map obfuscates the true extent of its reach. Its basically half the globe united in material interests vs a collection of independent minded states whose goal isnt a new international order but a world without “world police” interference.
and my point is that unless those handful of independent minded states immediately get their shit together and form a united military alliance they will all die
Nope it’s the only way forward. The anti-imperialists must make bold moves and escalate against the west or sit around being picked off one by one.
Notice how the only victories we have had are ones where our side takes initiative and moves against “conventional wisdom”. Operation True Promise 3 and the invasion of Ukraine came too late, they would have been more successful if they just did them without hesitation immediately. The lesson learned is hesitation and isolation is death.
I would rather the world be destroyed in nuclear hellfire than the zionists and imperialists win again and end history, destroying all the anti-imperialists one by one as they sit around doing nothing. The truly dangerous thing is to be paralyzed by fear.
“Dare to struggle, dare to win.” Mao was willing to gamble complete extermination of the Chinese people through nuclear annihilation for the sake of spitting in the face of imperialists.
As of now, the political class of Russia and China (and honestly Iran too although the Iranian political class might have the decision made for them) are not willing to take that gamble while the political class of Yemen and the DPRK are willing to, which is why everyone acts more or less how they’re currently acting.
look at how many Russian prominent oligarchs have dual Israeli-Russian dual nationalities
The population of Israel that’s made up post-1991 Russian emigres is huge.
Ok? Putin has gotten the oligarchs under his thumb and subordinated to the Russian state. Israel has aided Ukraine and destroyed Syria, Russia’s ally. If Russia was willing to go to war with Israeli proxies to protect Syria, they should be willing to do what it takes to protect Iran - also their strategic ally. They need to wake up to the reality that Israel is a proxy of the west, not a neutral nation, and their enemy.
if Putin won’t do it, Kim should
Won’t be easy transporting a nuke from NK to Iran. While Russia can just hand it over.
Russia suggesting that it’ll leave Ukraine alone if it simply disarmed itself and retreated 1000 miles west of the dneipr, but totally believes that Israel will leave Iran alone if they disarm themselves and retreat a thousand miles east of the Persian gulf
just one more Minsk treaty bro just one more Minsk treaty bro