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.
To all the doomerism especially regarding the involvement of China and Russia:
The USSR had a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany and only officially started fighting the Wermarcht when operation Barbarossa began. Stalin almost entirely refused to provide any help to Korea and said he was prepared for the peninsula to be occupied by the US. Soviet soldiers didn't fight in Vietnam, soviet soldiers didn't fight in Angola, soviet soldiers didn't fight in Cuba. I understand that it is difficult and frustrating to see the escalation against Iran and the inaction from Russia and China while we feel powerless in this conflict, but the doom and gloom in this space is not helping anyone.
Speaking of hesitation, the US waited 15 years of sanctions against Syria to get their win, with many hesitations and flip-flops (Obama first considered treating Syria like Libya but then changed his mind). The same applies to Iran. The sanctions, isolation, and infiltration goes back for decades. This bizarre idea that "we need to be bold like the fascists" is disconnected from reality. Stop idealizing the fascists as omnipotent and omniscient. The USA is at its weakest position since at least 100 years.
Putin is not an anti-imperialist hero, history dragged him in this camp, he is simply in this coalition because of his own interests. China is a country that would prefer their people live in peace and prosperity and not get dragged into a hot war that could literally kill hundreds of millions of them. Especially for people in the west: Neither China nor Russia are here to fix the western left's failures. It's western governments funding the genocidal fascist regime. What are we doing here to stop that?
History will not end until humanity ends, the high capital experienced from the "end of history" and the "victory" against communism, a struggle that capital, imperialism, and fascism fought while at its peak for 70 long years with endless genocide and destruction, didn't even last 20 years as the 2008 crisis already started the struggle that is reaching a violent peak today. Humans will continue to fight, against setbacks or from positions of strength.
We should do what we can however insignificant to help in this struggle and be ready to fight for our side.
I really don't get why people would prefer the world die rather than act less than ideally, erring on the side of erroneous caution in the nuclear age
I also don't get the postulations that state that the final victory of the US camp is all but assured if the Middle East or China or Russia fall
I absolutely don't want that to happen,but I don't buy the assumption that it would permanently solve the contradictions within capitalism or end any hope of a better world
It would set humanity back millenia,sure,but a nuclear war would reset all of human history as well as make the planet fully near unlivable, something even worse than if the worst climate change predictions come true
Is this leftist nihilism? I honestly don't get why people are becoming posadists all of a sudden
It’s easier to imagine nuclear war than the end of imperialism
It’s easier to blame others for not taking actions than look to ourselves and figure out what actions we can and should take
Maybe because I'm a bit older than most here and I've sat by and watched as the imperialists destroyed dozens of nations. I've watched us backslide into reaction and the entire world history rewind by 100 years. All of our progress lost. All due to fecklessness and inaction. We have amazing capabilities, the people united cannot be defeated, but for some reason we just don't exercise our power. We just surrender and lose before even fighting.
We don't have "a millenia" for history to go on. Climate change and mass extinction is a ticking clock that we are already running over on. If we lose now, we lose forever.
All due respect, nuclear war is apocalypse by another name
What exactly does it do for the benefit of humanity? Erase all of history and doom the unfortunate few to die in utmost agony? Who's to say that humanity won't survive climate change? Who's to say the worst will happen? How can we know for sure that what you say will come true? Do we want to chance it on our non nuclear wasteland world or do we wanna go all in and risk killing off everything to cut off the cancer. While I do see where you're coming from,I fundamentally can't justify consigning humanity to that type of grim fate,even if the fascists get their commupance. I think humanity deserves to live,even if it is a miserable life.
Now,this doesn't mean blind pacifism and inaction, but accelerationism is something I will never agree with, even if what you say is right. The risk is too great and I can't in good conscience support something that will erase billions and leave the last millions to die in pain and suffering just for the sake of justice.
"I've sat by and watched"
Well there's your problem, stop sitting by and do something, if you're so eager for everyone else to be at war why are you on hexbear instead of at war?
I'm an individual ma'am, not a nation state. I did everything within my power. They actually have the power to change history and they don't
They are made up of people. And I can guarantee you that the people of China aren't interested in being at war with Israel, so what is the nation-state supposed to do? It's all well and good to call yourself materialist, but the material conditions of the average Chinese citizen doesn't lend towards them wanting to die in Iran. So what, should China try to impose militarism on its populace? It's easy to demand violent intervention, war, and foreign imposition when that's how capitalist nations operate, but when it's you and your family being asked to give up your currently peaceful life to die for people you've never met...well most of the people here baying for blood certainly wouldn't do it, most people here would hardly deprive themself of a comfort, a convenience, or a treat unless forced to.
Edit: and while we're at it, you definitely didn't do "everything within your power" if you're asking other people to put their lives on the line but you're safely here typing on Hexbear
OK? And because of this they are incapable of being proactive and aggressive? The US is made of people too but doesn't have this issue
Who said that China needs to get involved in a land war? Literally just fucking embargo the US and Israel already. Jesus christ.
Because the people of the US are materially interested in attacking others. You talk about yourself as some great material analyst, but come on. Actually look at the demographics you're talking about, actually learn how people are in the US and China, the lives they lead, the things they think, their material conditions and their class interests. It's pretty obvious why the US can convince people to go to war, and why China would struggle to get popular support for foreign intervention. The US is propped up by violence, it feeds them. China is propped up by peaceful trade. You can't just "analyze" your way out of how people relate to the world around them and how people would feel about being asked to get involved in a war.
And the people of Iran should have been materially interested in protecting their own deterrence, but they instead failed and were too soft-hearted and "patient". They acted irrationally by allowing themselves and all their allies to be destroyed
This is truly such cynical and bloodthirsty rhetoric. You're literally victim-blaming on a national scale because Iran tried to avert war.
They will fight alone without allies because of their lack of this "cynical" and "bloodthirsty" logic. Analysis is not "victim blaming" it's a cold autopsy.
Their “trying to avert a war” was doomed, they negotiated with parties that are not agreement capable. They should have known this after the first perfidies and betrayals but they kept going back. They failed to follow through on the commitments of the axis of resistance and instead prioritized their own economic comforts. The libs salivating at sanction relief when they should have been crying over the martyrs that died for nothing for them.
Yeah, I'm cynical after watching decades of these people self-sabotaging. And yes, I thirst for blood of imperialists which is the proper stance to hold.
The average Iranian wasn't interested in going to war because, surprise surprise, they now get to see their sons and daughter fucking bombed. How terrible it must be to blame them for hoping that it wouldn't come to this, because the monumental decision to pull the trigger on a war and all the countless deaths that will follow was not a simple calculus to the people who are actually involved.
Woe to them for the judgments of a safe and righteous keyboard warrior.
Israel WAS interested in going to war and destroying their nation, so tough shit. They don't get to decide whether to go to war or not, it's been declared on them. They could have determined the timing and whether they had allies or not, and they chose the worst possible path and will fight the war alone now. They fight either way, but because they were so "patient" and paralyzed with fear they will be easier to digest for the imperialists
If it's so easy to choose to be part of war then get off your ass and do something, soldier. The Internet trenches aren't going to defeat imperialism, they need the world's best strategist in the war room, get to it.
I'm not a nation state. I also don't have Israel bombing me seeking to destroy me. Weren't you just talking about material analysis? Where did that go once you got on your moralist soap box?
Why would I go and sign up to fight for people who i'm openly expressing contempt for their letting their allies die for nothing? How do you square that logic? If I was part of the axis of resistance Iran would already have let me die to buy 1 more month to negotiate a dead end deal with the US. You are the one that has “faith” in Iran, so why don’t you go and fight in the axis and die for Iranian libs to have one more week before their war?
I'm not the world's best strategist, i'm not even in the top 100 million people probably. Which makes it even more pathetic that i'm running circles around them and easily predicted all of this from the outset. If even I could see it, why couldn't they?
This is literally what those NAFO people say,but on the left lol