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.
Besides this megathread, what are good places to get info about the Iran situation that aren't totally influenced by mainstream media?
I get most of my geopolitics from Radio War Nerd (I've been kinda checked out over the last few years, I've been focusing on learning history. Revolutions by Mike Duncan is really good) but basically I'm looking for somewhere to go to check
-what just happened
-what kind of retaliations are we expecting
-are we going to war oh fuck oh fuck should I panic
They should just continue engaging Isreal in a war of attraction their air defense's will not last long and the harder they hurt the more incentive they have to cut there losses. Iran should tie any possible agreements with a permanent peace and rebuilding of Gaza I actually think Ignoring the US's provocation or responding with a token response and focusing on Israel to be the sounder move closing the strait of Hormuz is a gamble it could make the US want to cut a deal quickly due to hurting American company's portfolios or make them believe further escalation is the only option.
Also hi everyone long time no see. This whole thing seems pretty bad, but also Iran didn't do much last time when trump killed their number 1 general? And, I wonder, will Iranian missiles overwhelm the Israeli anti-missile missiles? Is it possible they run out or something?
They already are and have been for days now, there have been daily hits on Israeli military, intelligence, and economic areas (such as C4I, military headquarters, and Haifa oil and electrical facilities)
They gave over 100 amerikan storm troopers brain damage from ballastic missile attacks on u.s. bases. https://www.npr.org/2020/02/11/804785515/109-u-s-troops-suffered-brain-injuries-in-iran-strike-pentagon-says
Irans parliment has apprved the closure of the strait of hormuz, waiting on government approval. I don't think they'll do nothing.
It is likely yes, but it also depends on a number of factors as well. "Israel" will definitely receive shipments from the US or elsewhere, so their missile defenses will be restocked. On the other hand, "israel" maintains air superiority over western Iran, which means iranian launching sites are being either destroyed or heavily suppressed, which forces Iran to fire ballistic missiles from the eastern region of their country, where "israel" can't reach but the arsenal available becomes limited because not all ballistic missiles have the range to reach "israel" from there.
If Iran fires from their western region it's because the "skies are clear", but the entire area is under constant surveillance by "israel" and also the US. So they might be prioritizing concealment over volume of fire. Not sure if they can fix this situation tbh, their Air Force is rather old and their Air Defense systems have been hit hard.
There are other iranian allies who have not really joined the fight thus far. Ansar Allah has claimed they will support Iran by striking "israeli" and US targets as well, their intentions are good but their capabilities remain limited, let's not forget they just went through a genocide, a famine and a renewed bombing campaign. Hezbollah has also been "silent", their true capabilities after their fighting with the zionists remain a mystery for the time being, they will jump into the fight if Iran feels too overwhelmed but the land link between the two has been completely shut off. Iraq has some pro-Iran militias that could maybe use medium range suicide drones to add up to the volume of fire coming from Iran, but Iraq is a mess too.
This is all without taking into account things like Iran enforcing a blockade on Hormuz or even targeting Saudi oil production or something like that, which would really escalate things.
American Prestige does good weekly rundowns of the world news. both the RWN guys have been on the conversation format episodes so they're a similar vein but academia brained instead of twitter brained.
Something Awful, C-SPAM board, the thread called "[I/CU/P/I] Our horrendous leadership could lead us into WW3"