(credit to RomCom1989 for the title)
Image is of an Iranian soldier exulting in the launch of a ballistic missile aimed towards the imperialists.
short summary this week: US doing pretty bad and Iran doing pretty good all things considered, Strait of Hormuz is closed and will almost certainly remain so until the end of the war, Trump has no idea what to do, global economic crisis from strait closure is basically guaranteed at this point but who will ultimately benefit most and who will ultimately lose most is still up in the air.
longish summary is below in the spoiler tags
longish summary
While there are still major debates raging about how badly things are actually going right now and what the post-conflict map may look like, as we blaze past the two week mark on this conflict, it’s becoming ever more obvious to almost everybody involved that this war is not going according to plan, if there ever was one. US airstrikes are, from what I can best determine, still mostly done with relatively less powerful (but still very dangerous!) and much less plentiful standoff munitions launched from bombers, though certain border and coastal areas are being struck with more powerful and more plentiful short-range guided bombs. This indicates that Iranian air defense is still sufficiently functional throughout most of Iran that the kinds of true carpet bombing done against Korea and Vietnam in the past (and Gaza very recently) is still too risky, though their airspace is still very much under assault, as we appear to have images of small groups of Western fighters breaching relatively deep into the country. Under some kind of Iranian pressure (drones? missiles? speedboats?) one aircraft carrier has retreated to a thousand kilometers from Iran, hiding behind the mountains of Oman; the other is sitting in the Red Sea, rather pointedly out of range of Yemen. As such, the ranges that Western aircraft must travel to bombard Iran is increasing, which reduces their frequency and increases strain on maintenance and logistics in the medium and long term.
While there is tons to say about the current social, economic, and military state of Iran, I don’t think I have a reliable enough picture to give a good summary beyond “they aren’t close to defeat or regime change”. What has instead captured much of the world’s attention is the continuing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has inspired some of the most delusional statements I have seen so far in my life, which is sincerely a profound achievement. For those out of the loop: the strait is currently closed to all shipping except those going to very particular countries (I’ve seen China and Bangladesh mentioned, and apparently India is in the process of working something out and may succeed or fail). This is because most ships are not risking the trip due to the ~20 tankers and container ships that Iran has already struck and disabled in the strait and in the Persian Gulf. Additionally, the threat from Iran’s military to Navy ships is such that attempting to create a convoy to guide tankers through it is suicidal to both the Navy and merchant ships. Right now it cannot be done, and it very well might be the case that it could never be done, simply due to the combination of Iran’s naval forces (hundreds, perhaps thousands, of armed, specialized speedboats designed for exactly this purpose), their drones (in the tens of thousands), their torpedoes, and if all else fails, their naval mines.
The Western reaction to this has been so moronic that it has almost integer underflowed into being philosophical: what does it truly mean for a passage to be “closed”? Has Iran truly “closed” the strait, or is the risk of traversing it simply too high for these cowardly sailors (who, for some strange reason, seem to care about their “lives” and “families”)? How is it possible for Iran to have closed the strait if, according to the West, Iran’s military has been totally obliterated? All these questions and more plague the minds of those who cannot accept the now-proven fact that there are indeed military forces on this planet that the US Navy with all its aircraft carriers and destroyers and submarines cannot defeat; and one of those minds is, rather hilariously, Trump himself. His thrice-daily positive affirmations that Iran has been defeated are taking on an increasingly deranged and almost pitiable tone; the lamentations of a man who has finally found a situation where him merely stating that something is true is insufficient to change the situation one iota. Despite stating that some kind of naval compact or alliance is being established to protect shipping, every Western country so far - from the UK, to France, to Japan, to Australia - has publicly stated that they will not risk their ships to do so. All this as the continued blockade yet further guarantees a worldwide energy, production, transportation, and food crisis that will have major global ramifications for at least the rest of the decade and almost certainly beyond.
If the anti-imperialists play their cards right, the US could lose much from this crisis, and others, like China and Russia, could gain a great deal. To quote Nia Frome (co-founder of Red Sails): “An effective Marxist has to be enough of an accelerationist/pervert to treat the obviously bad things that are going to happen as the political opportunities they are.”
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:
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.
Serious questions. Where does someone draw the line? What’s the difference between making fun of Kamala Harris for losing to Trump and making fun of this? Or Graham Platner? Like, I understand that you should critically support your friends, allies, etc who are on your side but who you may not agree with 100%. There’s always been a lot of disagreement in any communist party. There’s lots of disagreement on Hexbear and Lemmygrad. To a certain extent, that’s healthy. But when someone clams to be on your side but keeps expressing opinions that go against your principles, when do they stop being ‘well intentioned’ and stop being someone you should support? When does the argument just becomes the same liberal incrementalism/lesser evilism?
I don’t know that much about Kat Abughazaleh so I’m not necessarily talking about them specifically. This is a more general question that has been kicking around in my head in discussions of Ali Khamenei and more pro-nuclear politicians that were/are in his orbit. Many liberals have been cheering his demise without considering his replacement may actually be ‘worse’ on the issues they claim to care about, making him the lesser evil in that situation.
harris was a nationwide campaign
platner was a blackwater merc and had a nazi tattoo, drawing a line in the sand there is really easy
ideally we wouldn’t have to care about electoral races we can’t vote in.
Sure, the line was pretty clear with Platner. They weren’t the best example in severity, I suppose. But they still claim to be some sort of socialist or progressive is what I was getting at and many people still argue that his domestic policy is likely better than his opponents. I agree it’s kind of a waste of brain space to pay attention to if you can’t affect the outcome, like the OP comment said people can just ignore it. I’m just kind of curious how people approach their critical support in different circumstances. The comment about community vibe/tone make sense to me.
i think you can’t take nazis at their word. no support at all, not even critical. the party structure and whoever helped him file shouldn’t put voters in the position to have to even consider someone like him, regardless of his being willing to lie about supporting good things.
Well,I didn’t say support,I said don’t create bad blood where there doesn’t need to be bad blood
I absolutely agree progressive voters,as they are,are absolutely not in “our” camp However,my point is that they could be in the future. I’m talking mainly about door knockers or callers and such,or even someone who takes time out of their day to convince those they know to vote for a candidate like this. These are people who could,if they woke up from their electorialist stupor, actually do good,they clearly show a commitment to actually doing something in the real world. My argument is that it’s pointless and self congratulating to dunk on them when they don’t attack you just to make yourself feel better. My point of view is that you’ll recruit from these people when they finally see that electorialism and incrementalism is a dead end. If that is the case,why veer into dunking on them when they eat shit like you eat shit everyday? They’re as powerless as you are. Some people like to couch their self congratulatory dunks as actual principled critique,that’s what I’m railing against.
Saying her foreign policy is dogshit wrapped in catshit wrapped with horseshit with a side of rat shit with sprinkles of guano on top is a valid criticism,but she is anti ice and decidedly anti Israel. That doesn’t mean you have to vote for her or even voice support for her ,but why rejoice when she loses to someone worse? Catharsis? That’s fine,I guess,I understand people need to let their resentment out,I’m just pointing out that to me at least,it’s a hollow and empty schadenfreude because it’s not like she lost to someone with actual principles,she lost to a pro-Israel guy.
For me,at least, progressives are one tier above the garden variety lib in salvageability. And they share some common principles. It’s perfectly fine if you don’t like them,but I just hate this idea that you’re actually doing this incredibly biting critique when you dunk on them,when in reality you’re just engaging in schadenfreude. I would be much less bothered if people were honest about that. There’s so many bigger demons out there,why pass the time ragging on people who ar least have some commonalities with you? Of course,if they attack first,it’s open season,no doubts about it,I’m just saying that if you don’t offer an alternative, starting shit doesn’t do anything but make you feel better about yourself.