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.
Expanding on my comment earlier it isn't much of a surprise that the escalation has reached this point. The next couple of days will undoubtedly result in the unnecessary loss of lives and infrastructure as I believe that the current western actions are meant to further shock and awe the Iranians back onto the negotiating table as a nuclear Iran is existential in nature to the Israeli project.
However, this will not go nuclear as some commentators are fearing for the main reason that it would be self defeating for both the US and Israel as a whole. The nature of nuclear deterrence is paradoxical almost. If you want a solid threat of nuclear deterrence than the #1 thing you cannot do is show that you are actually willing to go nuclear in a non retaliatory way. Doing so would change the calculus for any opposition that you wish to engage in militarily in the future. In this case nuking Iran who is on the cusp of nuclear capabilities is in practice no different from first striking an actually nuclear capable state as it indicates you are willing to attempt to decapitate them before they can retaliate. The use of nukes would thereby actually encourage opposition to first strike you first if they believe you wish to engage on them in the future. A dark forest scenario if you will. This is both important to Israel as it would encourage everyone in the region to move first at some point in the future to avoid nukes and perhaps more importantly would greatly affect the US's ability to credibly go against China and Russia.
In total, the absolute worse case scenario going forward from a leftist perspective is if Iran is more of a paper tiger than the US is. If the leadership collapses and their ability to complete the bomb in a timely manner is compromised then they will likely be forced into a disadvantageous agreement and cease to be eventually. If they've dragged their feet in their development of nukes this could also result in a very uncomfortable time for Iran. I am not an expert on the ME but based off of other commentators I do not see them as that weak. Optimistically outside of this worse case scenario this will be a severe blow towards US imperial ambitions going forward.
If this level of bombing and attacks do not work to dissuade the development of the nuke in Iranian research sites deep underground and the Iranians refuse to comply with the NPT than the only card the US has left is to either acquiesce to Iran who will at this point all but certainly complete the bomb or go boots to the ground. Such an operation would come at a high price and would not even be guaranteed to succeed. Staging for even the Iraq war at what was arguably the height of American power took several months and occurred when support for such actions from the public were at an all time high. One may argue that leadership would force the issue but military manpower is currently at an all time low. Any delays and any time given to the Iranians is time they will use to develop their nuclear capabilities which will result in a strategic defeat for the west.
In all, this is now a race against time for both sides. My hope is that in the face of such destruction that the spirit if the Iranian people may persevere even in the face of such evil.
I can see the logic, but the empire and its rabid dog have made some... insane choices recently even from the lens of advancing their hegemony.
The best worst case scenario is the US dumping endless bunker busters on nuclear sites and declaring victory whether they're destroyed or not.