Mere hours before Trump’s 8pm Tuesday deadline yesterday, Pakistan’s government contacted Iran with a US-written proposal for a two-week ceasefire, explicitly stated to also include Lebanon, during which they would negotiate a permanent end to the war on the basis of Iran’s 10 Points. Among other things, these points include 1) maintaining strict control (joint with Oman) over Hormuz, complete with a toll; 2) the end of sanctions on Iran; 3) keeping their enriched uranium; 4) a withdrawal of US forces from the Middle East [stated by the Supreme Leadership Council but not in the 10 Points, so who knows], and 5) some plausible guarantee that Iran would never be attacked again. I’ve heard rumors that China may have prodded Iran to accept these terms.
In theory, these are relatively confident and maximalist demands. In practice, Iran has already achieved military and economic control over Hormuz and the withdrawal of many US troops and bases from the region, so at least a few of Iran’s demands are, to a greater or lesser extent, already achieved, and with little hope for an increasingly exhausted US to undo these achievements short of nukes.
A couple hours after the ceasefire, the Zionist entity began a wave of airstrikes in Lebanon, killing hundreds of civilians, as well as flying drones into Iranian airspace. This was a strange move to make even if you assume - very sensibly - that the US is completely agreement non-capable: why not agree to the ceasefire and simply pretend to negotiate for two weeks while regrouping/repairing what assets you can and then start hitting Iran again?
One theory is that the Zionists are testing to what degree Iran is actually willing to have solidarity with Lebanon and Hezbollah. While the Resistance has been relatively united since October 7th, the formation of separate peaces instead of negotiating terms as a united front has been a major exploitable weakness. Alternatively, it’s been proposed that the US didn’t even consider using the ceasefire to regroup and deceive Iran, and that Trump merely wanted a way to chicken out of his threat on Iran’s electrical grid - the fact that US officials have since stated that Iran’s 10 Points were not the same ones they agreed to is a point supporting this, I suppose. If the conflict resumes and Trump does not deliver another 48 hour deadline (and/or makes it something silly like a month from now) then this could be the explanation.
From Iran, I am getting the sense that a lot is happening behind the scenes. Statements from top officials like Araghchi have stated quite plainly that there will be no ceasefire and no negotiations unless the Zionists stop attacking Lebanon, but as of ~24 hours after the ceasefire began, there has been no significant military response from Iran yet. There have apparently been phone calls between Araghchi and numerous regional officials, but it is unknown to what end. All the while, the global economic situation continues to deteriorate. Over the next week or two, the last tankers that left Hormuz before it closed will arrive at their destinations. If the missile exchanges begin once more, then the West, much like most of the rest of the world, will be experiencing all sorts of fuel, energy, food, and product shortages while trying to justify why they broke the ceasefire to kill more Lebanese civilians.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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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.
https://nitter.net/venanalysis/status/2045022785106215207
All news from Venezuela making me sad. I’m glad that the US didn’t carpet bomb the country for not complying to their demands but these new collaborations will hurt Venezuela and its people in the long term.
Imagine having the entire experience of Cuba on your side, so many things to learn about, so much to do, literally unlimited oil of the best quality possible… and you end up like this… coming back to the IMF: the literal destroyer of nations. Also she thanked Trump and Marco Rubio lmfao.
Well goodbye to them. At least I’m glad Chávez isn’t around to see whatever the fuck this even is. All you had to do was fight back, just like Iran did.
I don’t think this is really a fair assessment of the situation, Venezuela’s situation is fundamentally different. I went over some of this in a previous comment, but the geography here simply isn’t favorable - Venezuela cannot do what Iran did, they’re not facing a dozen overstretched imperial outposts that they can force the Americans to abandon, but the heart of the empire itself.
It’s unfortunate, but we’re supposed to be materialists at the end of the day, and we have to face the material fact that countries in the US’s backyard are simply ill-positioned to resist - it’s a miracle that a handful of socialist countries even managed to survive in the region for so long. The reason why other resistance efforts, like in Vietnam, and now Iran, could work, was because they were in faraway territories that required the empire to expend substantial resources to deploy and supply their troops, and thus these resistances could impose a cost that eventually couldn’t be born. This is not necessarily the case for the Caribbean, Central America, and the northern stretches of South America.
The only thing that could really work here, other than nukes (and would it have even been possible for countries in the region to manage to acquire nukes if they tried? carrying out sabotage or preemptive strikes is also a lot easier for countries closer by), would be a genuine anti-war movement in the US. And unfortunately, a lot of what passes for the American Left today can barely even bring themselves to not repeat imperialist narratives about the “dictator” Maduro…
No no, Venezuela should have created a domestic drone and missile industrial complex by now and been willing to liberate Puerto rico through a amphibious assault.
Hezbollah managed it without oil, so what’s up with that.
There are myriads of ways they could have played it differently, but unfortunately they decided to just bankroll social state via oil.
I have some small amount of hope until they shatter communes that they are biding their time, but not looking good so far, with letting in evangelicals, putting opposing party members in judiciary or selling all resources
Not to mention if the kidnapping attempt gone wrongly (say, three helicopters shot down) things would look differently. Same for putting manpads on tankers, if you are a dead man walking at least try to hurt your killer
Running into the limits of social democracy. Venezuela is pretty much maxing out the potential of social democracies while not being a collaborator of the west. Still not enough to secure continued sovereignty…even with massive oil reserves.
Significant monetary and industrial support from an outside, regional source in a country not under a financial blockade.
What’s up with it is that they are totally different places in almost every way, I guess. The long term oil reliance was definitely a bad move, in hindsight.
I have the same hope but I don’t see the things you are worried about in the same way as you due to the strength of the communes.
I understand you’re trying to be funny and all but you should know there are ways to fight back that don’t include missiles and fucking drones. But oh well.
Cuba didn’t have any missiles or drones to speak of yet they fought back against US Imperialism over and over again.
it feels like a lost cause with the region being so strongly against them. Even Nicaragua is folding by letting the Evangelical activists out. As a region we could do more but no, most want to elevate gusano voices and deride these governments as “dictators” while glazing Bukele, Milei, and the brainless population keeps guzzling the social media poison. I haven’t entirely given up but it can be very testy during times like this.
it’s a shame you didn’t let Venezuela know sooner, I’m sure they would have loved to finally be told what to do to fight back
Cuba is famously doing well due to their ability to fight the US, right? Or are you harkening back to their successes before most people here were born?
It might be disappointing as cinema but in the real world Venezuela would not be able to survive what Iran is going through, choosing the path of diplomacy is the only option they had. Having thousands of dead Venezuelans wouldn’t suddenly give them the ability to fight back, it would just make them have even more challenges to overcome than before, while not being able to sell oil and fund their nation.
Well it’s a shame they didn’t invest in better diplomats instead of buying advanced fighter jets and the best anti aircraft system of it’s time… because if this is the best they could come up with then it’s simply embarrassing. Where is their bargaining power?
Thousands poured into the streets the day after and Delcy’s main job was to demobilize them. Not even a general strike, nothing, nada. Maybe these people were never too serious about the whole “Váyanse al carajo yanquis de mierda” thing after all. So in the end we went from a leader who openly defied the US and it’s leaders and understood war with them was very likely to a lady who thanked the genocide-loving pedophile piece of shit of Donald Trump for “his work” while also talking about a “far-right plot to prevent Venezuela from reaching out to the IMF”. Lady, you just thanked them a second ago. Stupid ass incompetent people, they disgraced the dozens of cubans who actually fought FOR THEM.
They don’t have bargaining power because of the material factors that were laid out above.
The current government is carrying out Maduro’s plan. https://orinocotribune.com/the-weight-on-delcy-rodriguez/
Jesus christ the ignorance is crazy
I will disengage because this is stupid as fucking hell and it pains me to see this incompetent leadership hijack a promising revolution, but then again I wasn’t referencing Maduro but Chávez.
Where is Cuba’s bargaining power? Why are people there starving? If I can cut off your entire economy from the world, kill anyone I want, block other people from helping you, where is your bargaining power? Is this a real question?
Oh wait, is your idea to fight the US for Venezuelan workers to shut down their own economy and refuse to work? Very strategic, yes I wonder why Venezuela didn’t try shooting themselves in the foot in response to US aggression. Surely the US would see Venezuelans doing a general strike hurting their own government and realize they better drop the sanctions and stop bombing fishing boats and seizing oil.
Cuba had the direct support of the Soviet Union. Venezuela has no one.
And also, the americans haven’t (yet) tried invading cuba. We’ll see how that turns out, but I feel like OP is confused about how Cuba has stood up to american pressure
Yeah, I think people can end up kind of overly hyping up Cuba and completely forgetting that Grenada and Panama happened. The Bay of Pigs failed specifically because the US didn’t provide the necessary support - but the empire has demonstrated with those other countries that they are, unfortunately, more than capable of bringing down the hammer on Latin American states that step out of line. And both of those happened while the USSR was still around - although Panama at least was in '89, during the Gorbachev years, but Grenada happened earlier, in '83 during Andropov’s tenure, so we can’t even blame Gorby for that one, the Soviet presence did nothing to stop the US.
Iran is somewhat benefited by its religious situation, the replacement leadership are as willing to die as the martyr’d leadership.
In socialist countries after the revolutionaries have passed on it seems that there is a great vulnerability that comes from threat of violence as new leadership are never as willing to fight as the revolutionaries were. They want to keep their lives whereas those that fought for revolution were always willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for it to succeed.
I honestly think this is an area of weakness that socialists should give some thought to. Post-revolution career politicians are not the same thing as revolutionary fighters, we should be trying to bridge that gap as much as possible. I want my career politicians to be as committed to the cause as the revolutionaries were.
Unironically we need a new theory of permanent revolution that doesn’t involve all the revisionism. The post petrodollar, multipolar world could be fertile ground for something like this to develop.
Yeah perhaps something like that. I don’t know. I think “socialism in one country” has merit if the conditions are something like the DPRK has faced where becoming an impenetrable fortress has been a necessity to their survival. But I think permanent revolution in the sense that all leadership should be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the international cause has its own merit, although in a cultish pseudo-religious way.
Socialists are missing something that maintains the same commitment to the cause in second/third generation socialist leaders. An element of longevity comes from this commitment that historic religious institutions have achieved where socialism as an institution has not yet learned, Juche is the only thing that has proven itself compared to others. Even China I think would fold if it had the same situation as Cuba or Venezuela, I don’t think Chinese politicians are as willing to fight as Mao and the revolutionaries were. I think they’re career politicians that would choose concessions in order to live. Juche is the only ideology that does not seem to be that way.
The vast(?) majority of current Iranian political leadership were veterans of the Iran-Iraq war. I don’t think religious fervor is good enough. If you have it in you to volunteer to fight against Saddam’s army that dumped chemical weapons on Iranian troops, killing your best friend in the process, you probably won’t fold under Trump’s threats.
Militancy weeds out people who can’t handle the pressure or more bluntly, militancy weeds out the cowards. With regards to Venezuela, the Bolivarians didn’t fight a brutal civil war against Venezuelan fascists nor did they face a war of extermination from Brazilians, so there will be untested people within their ranks who fold under pressure.
It’s why democratic socialism can only go so far. Without militant action to constantly test and weed out cadre like a crucible, there will be a contingent of cadre who will buckle under pressure. And if that contingent finds their way into leadership roles, then the whole org can be undone through leadership choking when the org is at a crossroads moment.
You can see this in Hamas where their political wing always lags behind their military wing. The political wing might face assassination attempts as well, but everyone in the military wing accepts their fate as a doomed person who will die before seeing a free Palestine. Only the bravest of the brave will sign their death warrant and join the military wing. They literally record their will and final words before entering battle.
Exactly, it’s about the factors that select leadership, in a burger dictatorship, it’s soft invertebrate politicians, in a state of struggle, the weak are wedded out.
“They brought my brother’s body. I wanted to kiss him. But I saw the families of 300 martyrs, whose bodies were never found. I was a brigade commander. If I had kissed my brother’s dead body, it would have broken the hearts of those family members. I couldn’t do it. I saw my brother in a dream for 10 days”.
This is MB Ghalibaf, who people here were calling a lib. If those are their “libs”, of course they are going to be successful.
This reeks of ignorance and/or chauvinism.
RIP to Venezuela.