this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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Bulletins and News Discussion from June 16th to June 22nd, 2025 - Iran, Harden Your Heart
(hexbear.net)
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.
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.
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.
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The true wildcard of this conflict is China.
If China truly wields its economic power, this conflict will END in 72 hours, and a truce signed by the end of this week, with American military presence being forced at least a thousand kilometers out.
Like, what are the Western countries going to do if China stops the flow of treats to their countries? The threat of rare earth export is a stern reminder of just how much of their industries rely on China. Good luck trying to invade China.
It’s only a matter of political will.
If we give China credit, the rare earth metals embargo is probably one of the most consequential moves the country has made to reign in the imperial core for decades. It will take time to make its effects truly felt in the military sphere, but the American MIC is already getting uneasy about where it'll find its next dinner.
Hopefully we see China flex its economic muscles more, even if militarily it waits it out. The Iran-China rail link would be interesting to watch if I were an intelligence officer right now.
China is a constant, it won't do anything until the US turns Xinjiang into another Syria
Since I’m a westerner, I’m reluctant to criticize a lot of China’s foreign policy actions as it feels … chauvinistic? I guess that’s the right word? Not that they are entirely beyond reproach, but I also realize it’s not China’s job to clean up the mess my country makes. China makes the moves it feels are in its best interest, and at the end of the day that is China’s prerogative.
On the other hand, very few people here are asking China to drop a few divisions of the PLA into Gaza and start blasting away. Usually hoping China would “do more” just takes the form of economic pressure (and frankly, fairly light pressure at that i.e. stop trading with Israel until there is a real ceasefire in Gaza). Not only does China have tremendous economic power it can wield, frankly I don’t think wielding that power would ultimately change the US/China dynamic all that much if at all.
It is China’s prerogative to do what it wants with its foreign policy.
However, never in the world have we a country so integral to the global economy that it can put a lot of pressure to stop an all-out war/genocide from happening. This is not a predicament that existed during WWII or the Cold War.
Even at its height, the USSR was so far from being integrated into the global economy that it simply did not have the weight to pull a “I’m willing to stop the world’s economy from moving, including our own, until everyone has come to an agreement that we should stop a war/genocide that will upend millions of lives.”
The only country that seems willing to wield its power is the US. People can laugh at Trump all they want, but he is willing to use that power to get what he wants, as foolish as some of the policies seem to be.
You complain about chauvinism but this is exactly what you described, Chinese nationalism and chauvinism. No they don't have the prerogative of collaborating with Nazis, at least not while calling themselves communist.
People can believe whatever they want but if labels are supposed to have meaning we should accept your self interest is also tied to your belief system, otherwise why are the Xi and his buddies cosplaying as Communists instead of just dropping the facade and call themselves the Nationalist Chinese Capitalist Party and be done with it.
China should not be allowed to do this shit otherwise we may as well embrace that internationalism is truly dead and it is whatever garbage self-interested "leftist" decides to do for themselves. We would be no better than our enemies.
I critique China because I hope they wont go down this nihilistic self-interested garbage path of rationalizing evil.
Joseph Stalin, 1949, https://revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv16n1/china.htm
I found the quote in this article: Against Dengism - The Red Spectre
Recognition of internationalism in word, and its replacement in deed by petty-bourgeois nationalism and pacifism, in all propaganda, agitation and practical work, is very common, not only among the parties of the Second International, but also among those which have withdrawn from it, and often even among parties which now call themselves communist. The urgency of the struggle against this evil, against the most deep-rooted petty-bourgeois national prejudices, looms ever larger with the mounting exigency of the task of converting the dictatorship of the proletariat from a national dictatorship (i.e., existing in a single country and incapable of determining world politics) into an international one (i.e., a dictatorship of the proletariat involving at least several advanced countries, and capable of exercising a decisive influence upon world politics as a whole). Petty-bourgeois nationalism proclaims as internationalism the mere recognition of the equality of nations, and nothing more. Quite apart from the fact that this recognition is purely verbal, petty-bourgeois nationalism preserves national self-interest intact, whereas proletarian internationalism demands, first, that the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country should be subordinated to the interests of that struggle on a world-wide scale, and, second, that a nation which is achieving victory over the bourgeoisie should be able and willing to make the greatest national sacrifices for the overthrow of international capital.
Thus, in countries that are already fully capitalist and have workers’ parties that really act as the vanguard of the proletariat, the struggle against opportunist and petty-bourgeois pacifist distortions of the concept and policy of internationalism is a primary and cardinal task.
The dengist consensus on this site doesn't recognize that China has set back the worldwide proletarian movement at every step in the pursuit of its petty bourgeois aspirations
once more: "a nation which is achieving victory over the bourgeoisie should be able and willing to make the greatest national sacrifices for the overthrow of international capital." what does this mean?
China is not capitalist. It is socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Tbh if China dropped trade with pissrahell, their products will be replaced with Indian ones. Hope a more sympathetic government in India joins with China to put economic pressure together. What is pissing me off is their refusal to at least declare that they are open to give military aid to Iran to intimidate West. Right now, West feels very confident about their attacks on isolated iran and they want to escalate.
And also, does this spinelessness give anyone confidence? It has been very clear west can embrace fascism to protect pissrahell. if there were any threat of communist hindering to their war effort there would be brutal crackdown and I am extremely doubtful China won't supply necessary materials to fascism at that point
There is no success scenario where China does absolutely nothing. No one wins by feeding their allies to their enemies
Why announce it?
To discourage the west?
I dont know if it particularly bothers China what happens as long as their isolation is protected.
The imperial core obviously is scared of China but fundamentally the Chinese economy and political system seems more than willing to adapt and reorganise itself to serve the interests of the international bourgeoisie.
Of course we see some minor opposition to the American hegemonic system at large but a lot if it is as much protecting itself defensively than it is about trying to strike blows to the imperial core, and only when the threats came for them specifically. I wonder how much chinese steel has ended up on both sides of the Ukrainian battlefield.
The substitution takes time, it'll still be a massive shock. And there are many goods India can't make while China can.
convincing the average Israeli to swap from Chinese products to Indian products is like convincing your pet cat to eat dry biscuits instead of wet food
This is the Indian communists’ (the Maoists at least) main beef with the CPC.