(credit to RomCom1989 for the title)
Image is of an Iranian soldier exulting in the launch of a ballistic missile aimed towards the imperialists.
short summary this week: US doing pretty bad and Iran doing pretty good all things considered, Strait of Hormuz is closed and will almost certainly remain so until the end of the war, Trump has no idea what to do, global economic crisis from strait closure is basically guaranteed at this point but who will ultimately benefit most and who will ultimately lose most is still up in the air.
longish summary is below in the spoiler tags
longish summary
While there are still major debates raging about how badly things are actually going right now and what the post-conflict map may look like, as we blaze past the two week mark on this conflict, it's becoming ever more obvious to almost everybody involved that this war is not going according to plan, if there ever was one. US airstrikes are, from what I can best determine, still mostly done with relatively less powerful (but still very dangerous!) and much less plentiful standoff munitions launched from bombers, though certain border and coastal areas are being struck with more powerful and more plentiful short-range guided bombs. This indicates that Iranian air defense is still sufficiently functional throughout most of Iran that the kinds of true carpet bombing done against Korea and Vietnam in the past (and Gaza very recently) is still too risky, though their airspace is still very much under assault, as we appear to have images of small groups of Western fighters breaching relatively deep into the country. Under some kind of Iranian pressure (drones? missiles? speedboats?) one aircraft carrier has retreated to a thousand kilometers from Iran, hiding behind the mountains of Oman; the other is sitting in the Red Sea, rather pointedly out of range of Yemen. As such, the ranges that Western aircraft must travel to bombard Iran is increasing, which reduces their frequency and increases strain on maintenance and logistics in the medium and long term.
While there is tons to say about the current social, economic, and military state of Iran, I don't think I have a reliable enough picture to give a good summary beyond "they aren't close to defeat or regime change". What has instead captured much of the world's attention is the continuing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has inspired some of the most delusional statements I have seen so far in my life, which is sincerely a profound achievement. For those out of the loop: the strait is currently closed to all shipping except those going to very particular countries (I've seen China and Bangladesh mentioned, and apparently India is in the process of working something out and may succeed or fail). This is because most ships are not risking the trip due to the ~20 tankers and container ships that Iran has already struck and disabled in the strait and in the Persian Gulf. Additionally, the threat from Iran's military to Navy ships is such that attempting to create a convoy to guide tankers through it is suicidal to both the Navy and merchant ships. Right now it cannot be done, and it very well might be the case that it could never be done, simply due to the combination of Iran's naval forces (hundreds, perhaps thousands, of armed, specialized speedboats designed for exactly this purpose), their drones (in the tens of thousands), their torpedoes, and if all else fails, their naval mines.
The Western reaction to this has been so moronic that it has almost integer underflowed into being philosophical: what does it truly mean for a passage to be "closed"? Has Iran truly "closed" the strait, or is the risk of traversing it simply too high for these cowardly sailors (who, for some strange reason, seem to care about their "lives" and "families")? How is it possible for Iran to have closed the strait if, according to the West, Iran's military has been totally obliterated? All these questions and more plague the minds of those who cannot accept the now-proven fact that there are indeed military forces on this planet that the US Navy with all its aircraft carriers and destroyers and submarines cannot defeat; and one of those minds is, rather hilariously, Trump himself. His thrice-daily positive affirmations that Iran has been defeated are taking on an increasingly deranged and almost pitiable tone; the lamentations of a man who has finally found a situation where him merely stating that something is true is insufficient to change the situation one iota. Despite stating that some kind of naval compact or alliance is being established to protect shipping, every Western country so far - from the UK, to France, to Japan, to Australia - has publicly stated that they will not risk their ships to do so. All this as the continued blockade yet further guarantees a worldwide energy, production, transportation, and food crisis that will have major global ramifications for at least the rest of the decade and almost certainly beyond.
If the anti-imperialists play their cards right, the US could lose much from this crisis, and others, like China and Russia, could gain a great deal. To quote Nia Frome (co-founder of Red Sails): "An effective Marxist has to be enough of an accelerationist/pervert to treat the obviously bad things that are going to happen as the political opportunities they are."
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on the Zionists' 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
Development of non-dollar trade isn't something that's easy for the Americans to grant. That would require the American bourgeoise to accept the death of the petrodollar, and thus the drying up of capital inflow from the gulf states, leading to a dramatic contraction in American bourgeois asset valuations. They would have to sacrifice their personal power for national and global energy security. Some of these bougies might simply go bankrupt (loans wouldn't shrink in size).
Even though the petrodollar is only one part of the international dollar trade, it's a non-linear system at core and other investors might also pull out (especially if the dollar starts inflating)
And what exactly is the point of lifting sanctions imposed by the west also? If Iran starts trading with them, they're either gonna be more dependent on their consumer market or consumer goods. Literally the reason why the could actually pull the Hormuz closure card is because they're under sanctions. They should rather look into simply boosting their trade with China and Russia, and not allowing any kind of reluctance when it comes to making military tech deals with them. Pretty much their best chance is what @xiaohongshu@hexbear.net has been preaching for the last who knows how long, and that is Chinese fiscal deficit spending allowing Iran to develop their productive forces and start exporting to China, whilst importing technology from them. Don't really get the frozen assets in this context either, not sure what they're made up of, although I guess China would accept them whatever they are (but that would also have the presupposition that China is not planning on dropping their IMF export mindset).
If anything, Iran should demand some kind of military base in Iraq, so their more accurate short-range ballistic missiles can hit Israel.
Rusia and china obey sanctions, that's the problem. China even obeys the sanctions on Russia.
They and Russia didn't however obey the snapback sanctions that were imposed by the UN recently. So if they're already being selective, why not just go all out? Not like America is in any position to retaliate if they already accepted Iran's peace proposal.
Because it's the individual often private banks that enforce the sanctions, the Chinese government is not going to force a Chinese bank to handle Iranian or Russian, transactions. And the bank isn't going to do it and get sanctioned.
Since Russian banks are also sanctioned, that's not as much of a problem, and the impediments to trade on that side are mostly Iran's fault for having poor roads between Bandar anzali and Iran proper. Then again it's only been 4 years since sanctions stoped mattering with Russia.
Which would matter a whole lot more if the biggest banks in China weren't state owned.
But they are still not gonna risk getting sanctioned to process Iranian or Russian transactions,
Strangely enough decreasing trade with Russia was a rather recent thing which happened, they previously could not give less of a shit, and they will probably be emboldened not to care after a US defeat. With Iran they openly said they're not gonna respect the snapback sanctions imposed by the UN.
Decreasing trade with Russia is as I said due to poor infrastructure, but before Russia got sanctioned, they absolutely cared, the Russians failed to deliver in lots of things the Iranians paid for, from grain to anti air systems.
Yeah, but that was in the past, now that they themselves are sanctioned and lines in the sand have clearly been defined, I doubt Russia would care.
Assuming the war is definitive and its end can truly be called a 'change in the global order', withdrawal of sanctions is the least of the demands. But it also produces positive effects on the shortest term. I don't see Iran putting all their eggs on trade with US and Europe either. But the relief produced from no longer being sanctioned also creates new opportunities to trade with China as well. And it should lead to a direct improvement in people's lives in that short term, helping stabilize the country further.
Moreover, an unsanctioned Iran is a powerhouse that can generate connections and relationships with all of Israel's allies. That is what Israel fears the most. A version of Turkey that is powerful, decisive, committed to Palestinian liberation, rich in natural resources and not isolated.
Really, if those demands all happen somehow or even de facto we are looking at a situation where re-sanctioning Iran is, like, step 15 in a second US conquest of the Middle East.
I mean sure, there is a point in the fact that it is up to Iran how they conduct themselves in those terms. But capital is capital. It will look to realize itself based on the most profitable sphere of production at the moment, and would require therefore require extensive control over it from the government. Not gonna pretend I know how Iran is in it's internal dealings, but it's fucking tough as shit to do that without Communism. Although I guess there is also a point in terms of other Arab states trading more extensively with Iran.
As I said in the comment above, China has already started ignoring snapback sanctions, not sure what could stop them at this point whether the west sanctions Iran or not.
Being able to trade with the entire world will always trump creating an axis of commerce that goes through just China and Russia. China is a strategic partner for Iran and the same applies to virtually every country. Iran is demonstrably worse off if they can't freely and safely negotiate deals with India or Europe or South America.
Even more China - in so far as it ignores the snapback sanctions, China is a massive economy. It is not just the oil sector of Iran that would like to do business with it, but clothing and medicines and food and so on and so forth. All those sectors, much smaller and with much smaller room for maneuver than Oil of all things, would benefit in the short term from removing sanctions.
There's a reason why California's pistachio industry and Israel are hand in hand in lobbying against Iran. The sanctions are still isolating, the threat of sanctions is still damaging, the US hybrid war architecture is destructive to everyday iranian lives. The shortest term relief is the removal of sanctions. The long term is covered by every other demand put forward by Iran.
One final point: trade relations take years to form. They run on institutional and personal trust. A new future where Iran is free from US hybrid warfare is a future where Iran can trade with France, or Mexico or China and Iran will need time and patience to build those relationships up.
It would also be quite good for Iran to have reliable partners from whom it doesn't expect to get news of any surprise arrangements with the imperium. Sure, trading with everyone is good, but whilst smaller countries are disunited and pursuing their own material interests, it leaves pretty much only Russia and China as the only countries who can conceivably shake off these threats coming from the US. Iran wants to negotiate with Germany? Oops! Uncle Sam has threatened tariffs on Germany if they do that, and the deal falls through. You are assuming the US will just do nothing and let these deals happen without their supervision.
If there is one thing which the America excels at, it's practicing divide and conquer on both it's enemies and allies alike. In the 1971, when Nixon suspended paying gold to in exchange for dollar-dominated assets, the European countries were enraged, and it looked like they could legitimately shake the foundations of the established international monetary system. Instead of an earthquake, we got a whimper. The US issued tariffs, buy-american tax credits and forced the exporting countries to impose quotas upon their industries. And of course it floated the idea of withdrawing troops from Europe and Asia, leaving the ruling classes of these countries to their own devices against the "Communist threat". In the end, it forced them to basically give up their real material goods not for something as shiny as gold, but as boring and mundane as a US Treasury security. The US reversed the established paradigm from having the control of these countries through issuing debt in dollars that forced countries to support american exports, to giving financial instruments such as bonds for real material goods, making these countries dependent on their consumer markets. The US picked off countries both large and in established economic unions, let alone countries who have nothing of the sort, which are the majority of the countries of the global south.
Not creating a sort of "axis" leaves countries vulnerable. And in this context, China needs to step up big time and actually be proactive for once, instead of letting a Home Alone character take the initiative. You fundamentally have to give up these cheap material exports and let your currency appreciate, reallocate labor from these industries into ones of greater technological innovation and boost domestic consumption. Simultaneously letting countries from the global south thrive by exporting to you, removing yourself from the rat race to the bottom. China giving up neoliberalism is the best thing that can happen to Iran and countries of the global south.
And yet it will still happen. Iran will still seek trade with Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Sudan, India, the parts of the Chinese trade and baking system that do err on the side of caution and so on. They'll still seek an end to the sanctions regime because regardless of all the catastrophizing, Russia and Iran do not complement each other while just Iran and China is not on the scale required to deliver what the iranian people need.
And what do you think happens if they conclude those deals? Once Iran has allocated labor through the market to satisfy these new export markets, hundreds of thousands of people being employed in them, educating themselves for these profession. What happens when Uncle Sam forces Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Sudan and India to pull the plug? These hundreds of thousands of Iranians lose their jobs practically overnight, and they obviously get upset. Then you will see real turmoil, this time not one manufactured by the Zionists.
What happens when the United States reneges on any of Iran's demands?
In the time after this war and the next one, if there exist more than two braincells between the lot of them, they will use it to build up the capacities for crude oil exports of their own companies in Venezuela. They will also incentivize the gulf states to build pipelines to the red sea and towards Oman, away from the gulf. You could say the Americans definitely weren't wise to enter into a war prematurely, underestimating their opponent and letting hubris get the better of them. But that doesn't mean you should underestimate them when their interests are on the line.
But that could of course be offset if China actually took a proactive approach to it's political economy and foreign relations. If China became the primary partner of countries in terms of their export markets, they could easily steal America's position. Therefore creating a new order not dependent on America, being able to financially protect it's allies and enforce certain countries to even trade with America on it's own terms.
Makes imports way cheaper and exports more competitive. Western sanctions don't just cut off trade between a country and the west. They limit trade with the entire world. The mechanisms for bypassing sanctions tend to be more expensive (with lower volumes to boot) than just being on western financial networks to begin with. Although obviously, the best case scenario is to create truly open financial networks that cannot be sanctioned to begin with.
The question of managing trade gets very complex, but it cannot be wise to only trade with a select few countries. Splitting the world into cold war style blocs would be a mistake, and not what multi-polarity aims for. Diversified trade with the global majority should be on the table. Although in reality, the Iranians should focus on internal circulation as much as possible due to their precarious geopolitical situation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_frozen_assets
According to wikipedia, Iran has $100-120 billion in frozen assets. Although the wikipedia article is quite slimy here. If you go to the reuters article used a source for the statement that $20 billion of Iran's assets are frozen in China and $6 billion in Iraq, you will see that the reuters article claims
Other frozen assets are things like South Korea not paying its gas/oil to Iran because the US blocked them. Or a skyscraper that the Iranian government owned which got seized. Or pre-revolution Iran buying weapons that did not arrive or be refunded (because they had a revolution before the weapons arrived).
To an extent, yeah. Pressures on prices in terms of the country being sanctioned, and therefore not having access to markets of countries actually respecting the sanctions play a part as well. But as I said in another comment, I fear that because of the nature of capital, there will appear a relaxation in their politics towards the west (much like Lenin talks about when discussing the NEP, and how it must be only a temporary measure).
I mean, it's not like there is really a choice at this point. The west doesn't really need sanctions to enforce it's will upon smaller countries who rely on it's consumer base. But I totally agree on the internal circulation part.