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.
I don’t think they would get all the way to gaza levels, where 95% of buildings are damaged or destroyed. That requires demolition teams and bulldozers and occupation. I think it could get to Beirut or Damascus levels, both of which Israelis threatened to “turn into Gaza” and then used the Dahiya doctrine to smash the cities apart. They aren’t Gaza, but the damage is incalculable. The historic buildings and centuries of culture and decades of development all gone. This is what the Americans also did during “Shock and Awe” in Baghdad, killing hundreds of thousands of people and destroying all power/water/utilities/etc. They will also likely target mosques, police stations, schools and hospitals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine
Israeli infantry and tank forces are pathetic, that you are correct about. I don’t think we’ll see them anywhere near Iran for quite some time. It will be airstrikes and drones and missiles and carbombs and the like.
The thing about the Dahiya warcrime doctrine is, that it wont work nearly as smoothly on a country like Iran as it does with militias. Iran has the resources to help families targeted by isntreal back on its feet economically, while said families would just be massively pissed off. It “works” against militias in poor countries because isntreal threatens them with long-term economic devastation while said militias can hardly strike back.
As long as the US can’t manufacture enough consent to carpet bomb cities and industrial sites, pissrael is shit out of luck with their terror strategies. And the US has already shown they are hesitating at least somewhat. If they get involved, it will be against the Iranian military targets like balistic missile launchers first, not cities.
Iran needs more anti-air urgently, but they are at least mostly prepared for this sort of war. isntreal isn’t.
I disagree heavily with every sentence in this paragraph.
Consent manufacturing no longer matters, this war is massively unpopular and they never even bothered with coming up with a justification. It’s naked aggression.
Where did they show this? You falling for Trump kayfabe like the Iranians did multiple times in a row? They attacked exactly when Sy Hersh leaked that they would. The “two weeks” thing was fake and misdirection. The operation was scheduled the whole time and went off exactly when scheduled. Israel’s initial attack last Friday was with Trump’s full knowledge and blessing. They are all fully committed to the most extreme zionist option. If you look at what they do and not what they say, it’s always the most bloodthirsty and aggressive option and they throw up a smokescreen of “negotiations” or “chickening out” to throw people off.
They will do SEAD/DEAD to clear out anti-air systems and clear the pathway for Israeli jets to do stand-in strikes on the city, the terror bombings. America will also hit dual-use infrastructure such as bridges, rail stations, power plants, etc.
Destroying the missile stockpiles and launchers will probably be the excuse the media uses for America to re-engage in the conflict. It will spread from there to SEAD/DEAD to clear out anti-air, railways, then to bridges, etc.
I think consent manufacturing matters at least somewhat in the sense that it limits the pace of American aggression. The public opinion in the US doesn’t matter in the slightest, but they still have to advance a narrative here.
The US can plan around consent manufacturing, but it can not outright ignore it.
If public opinion doesn’t matter who is the narrative for?
The narrative is all that matters in the spectacle that is US politics. As long as both parties go along with their slightly varied warmongering take, and keep the discussion going on their terms, the public opinion on single issues doesn’t matter. They need to seem “reasonable” only in relation to each other.
Trump could literally just say he’s doing it kill arabs (despite Iranians not being arab for the most part) and then never make another statement on the war and it wouldn’t slow the war down one iota. The machine is totally detached from the populace. American people are completely subservient and cowed. Zionism reigns supreme, totally unmoored. They just did a genocide right in front of everyone and gaslit us and said “no we didn’t”. It doesn’t matter anymore. They don’t give a fuck. They’re slaughtering starving children as they stumble up to the fake aid distribution sites by shelling them with tanks into crowds.
There has to be the illusion that politics is going on on a national level though, to keep the US regime anchored. Things still can’t move too fast to give the illusion of deliberation and tough decisionmaking.
As you said, this whole farce was all planned out, but the US still couldn’t fully join in on day 1. They needed sufficient buildup and propaganda in place first. Something isntreal didn’t need.
The public can be 90% against something in the US and the government can still do it, if you give them a week.
No it was better this way for the US. The good cop-bad cop routine bought them the element of surprise, and continues to pay dividends with salami slicing tactics. If America just immediately went in with Israel then they would have both just blown their load and then gotten into an attrition situation. This way they get the element of surprise several times and keep getting to do a strike and dance away, do a strike and dance away, etc. America is playing this “strategic ambiguous” game where they simultaneously say two contradicting things: If you retaliate against us we’ll fully commit to the war and you won’t like that & we’re just gonna do a limited attack real quick.