(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.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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.
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.