Image is of a destroyed American AWACS plane in Saudi Arabia, of which there is a very limited supply and each of which is enormously expensive both monetarily and in terms of components. Iran hit this with a precision drone strike that likely cost ~$20,000.
I don't have much to add from the last megathread description. This isn't to say that nothing has happened or has changed since then - decades are still happening in weeks - but the general flow of the war is remaining the same. Trump sometimes threatens to open the Strait with troops and flatten Iran to rubble, and other times threatens that he's gonna back off and let other countries handle it if they really want little trifles like "fuel" and "energy" so much. Iran continues to strike across the Middle East. The West continues to bomb civilian infrastructure due to their relative inability to affect the missile cities. In all: things are generally getting worse for America and the Zionists.
April is the month where the last ships that left Hormuz before it was closed will arrive around the world, so the last month of economic turmoil has been a mere prelude to what's going to occur in the near-future. The silver lining is that Iran appears to be formalizing the new state of affairs in Hormuz, creating a rial-based toll to allow passage between a pair of Iranian-controlled islands where they can be monitored, meaning that, as long as the US doesn't do something exceptionally stupid, the global energy crisis may "only" last a couple years instead of simply being the new reality from now on. Some countries have already agreed to this arrangement, and others will inevitably follow despite their consternation as their economies increasingly suffer.
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.
Ex-Iran foreign minister, involved in peace negotiations, badly wounded after US-Israel airstrikes
It really feels like they have no plan beyond "Kill everyone who isn't just going to immediately surrender to us (and also most of the people who will)."
The strategy is genocide... please begging people to stop this "US doesn't have a plan" talk!
Their plan is to kill everyone they can and deindustrialize the country.
It's the Libya model. They plan to destroy Iran as a coherent, advanced nation. Not necessarily kill every last person in it (though zionists wouldn't be above it) but basically destroy all the infrastructure that keeps society running and stable. The things that contribute to a comfortable life, to security, to industry, to retaining intellectual talent instead of having it all flee abroad, etc. This would remove Iran as a regional power, ensure US hegemony, Zio-Nazi expansion plans, and greater global geopolitical goals of completely choking off China from the rest of the world outside Asia overland. It would also set the stage for a future collapse, color revolution, separatist carving up with Kurds and whatever other fools they can get to go in on it with them down the line some years, a decade, whatever.
Can they accomplish this with what little they have? Remains to be seen. If they can get in there and safely use glide bombs in great number over time instead of expensive stand-off munitions they would be able to purely from an air campaign "send Iran back to the stone age", not literally but they'd certainly send them to a precarious place with no industry, no stable power, no universities, precarious problems with internet, electricity, medicine, etc. Problem is their airfields are not safe from Iranian retaliation right now forcing long, exhausting flights from Europe which limit the number of bombing runs somewhat. So the question then becomes can they either blind Iran so it has no ability to target their airfields with advanced missiles OR can they destroy or remove from operational ability enough of their missile stockpile and/or production that Iran starts to lack the ability to police the strait and pose a threat to US aircraft conducting missions out of the region? And for that matter can Iran manage to find a way to deal with aircraft in hardened shelters in zionist entity bases? If they can do that the US is truly in a world of trouble.
Iran doesn't need to kill any aircraft. It just needs to survive the sorties as the price of oil creeps up and supply chains begin to stutter.
For every hour a typical imperialist warplane is airborne, the number of man hours to maintain it as airworthy ranges between 15 and 30+. US aircraft readiness rates before the war were around 60%, so nearly half of the airforce is under maintenance at any one time.
24/7 air raids aren't sustainable. Iran has survived the shock-and-awe, and whilst the fascists will get desperate their real chance to "win" outright has largely passed. The war America hasn't won since 1945 is returning, the war of attrition.
You're right, I make jokes, but it is clear that they're looking to turn Iran into another Libya, a failed state with warlords fighting over scraps while the US loots and plunders all their resources.
"Kill everyone fanatical enough to resist us! Kill everyone stupid enough to try to negotiate with us!"
"Anyone who runs is a VC, anyone who stands still is a well disciplined VC" on strategic level
VC?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=S06nIz4scvI
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
What, were did you get that? It's more like the opposite: kill anyone who might surrender to us to keep the war going at all costs.
Is Kharazi representing Iran or is he one of those "opposition" guys? Seems weird to not send a current member of the Iranian govt.
He was involved in negotiations previously, so he was probably contacted by relevant parties in Pakistan to try and figure something new out.