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.
What do you think of the perspective that Arnaud Bertrand has on China’s lack of involvement in the Iran-West-conflict?
He says: pentagon planners lament the fact that the US might fight another war in the Middle-East, which obstructs their desired pivot to China. They don’t like that the US is spending recources on fighting endless adversaries everywhere while China keeps focusing on expanding their industrial capacity. In essence: a conflict with Iran is a distraction if you want to prevent China from becoming the hegemon.
Those planners are frankly ignorant babies. They’re the type who cannot see the bigger strategic picture. They see things in terms of what can we do purely with military and intelligence assets. Our assets vs theirs who wins. And from that perspective China is only growing stronger and the chances of us beating them in a straight up stand-up fight in their backyard and/or toppling them diminish every year we wait. They’re a hammer so they go looking for nails but don’t understand what furniture is being built or what the factory is.
However the planners of the deep state, the more studious types, the ones who orchestrated the victory of the US in the cold war understand that we will not beat China military to military. Their plan is to repeat the first cold war. That is they intend to isolate China as the USSR was isolated, to deprive it of key technology, to deprive it of key raw inputs, to inflict economic pain and force either an early transition and loss of quality of life to higher stages of socialism and state planning and control. They know a straight fight would be bad so instead plan to use our established network of bases, our air power, our logistics network, our network of vassal states and the powerful NATO navy which is still a force to reckon with to not necessarily fight China’s navy though they’ll do that but to hurt them economically, to enforce this blockade and isolation of China. To enforce locking the rest of the world in with the US for exploitation and locking China and Russia and a few other regional countries in a small block. And then you deprive that block of the middle east, of oil, of any relations with the counties that control the petrodollar system or can otherwise fuck the west by messing with oil supplies. You secure that for your own security and plenty and give them instead scarcity and you count on that to wear them down like the USSR, to spread discontent, disillusionment, nihilism, etc among the enemy. This is a project of decades of cooking them in a pressure cooker, of pulling all resources and all peoples to you under the gun and denying them the same. Using those resources and people to attempt to technologically break out ahead of them.
Maybe this plan won’t work but China is counting on multipolarity and these planners are aware of it and working to counteract it. China cannot take on the whole world on its own nor does it want to. The belt and road exists for a very real reason, a real fear, a real problem and if Iran falls the last part of it is effectively snipped. India will absolutely side with the west when the cards are down so they can’t count on them. Russia is also a fair-weather friend, there is a reason they so loudly protest how good their friendship is and it is because it isn’t that secure. Russia has been trying to get back in with the west before burning roads with China and Ukraine seems to have burned some bridges but it is a country in the grips of reaction and capitalists who are only friends with China and anti-imperialism out of tactical necessity. Even with Russia firmly in their corner they can’t do a lot.
Basically this is setting up a winning chessboard for the eventual fight with China. This is taking out sub-lieutenants that buff the big boss before the final boss bottle rather than going directly there with them active. They’re cutting off China’s friends, they’re locking down regions, they’re locking down resources. They’re blocking the belt and road. They’re setting up everything for when they pull the trigger so they’re in a position of strength.
China already has means of production. Waiting a few years won’t give them meaningfully more and in fact might give the US access to a bit more with all the build-up and demand they’ve generated with Ukraine and now this and it gives them an opportunity to battle test their armies and their weapons in a way China won’t be able to. China will be fighting experienced armies with field tested weapons that have been refined in the field not simulations and China won’t have that advantage.
The US is settling all the other scores right now, taking out all their enemies and problems so none of them can rise up and draw some of their forces away while they’re badly needed fighting China. Imagine if for example the US didn’t do this and for example Hezbollah and Iran were both strong forces when the US started a fight with China, a high intensity war even requiring all their missile production capacity and suddenly the zionist regime is drained of weapons and screaming in pain and in danger and the US has to either weaken it’s fighting force against China or let the zionist entity collapse. These types of actions and moves prevent that being an option, they clear the path and allow them to focus.
China has its own reasons for biding its time and playing the part of the neutral party, unfortunately it may end up being a trap the west uses against them knowing their particularities there and finding a way to turn that strategy against them.