Mere hours before Trump's 8pm Tuesday deadline yesterday, Pakistan's government contacted Iran with a US-written proposal for a two-week ceasefire, explicitly stated to also include Lebanon, during which they would negotiate a permanent end to the war on the basis of Iran's 10 Points. Among other things, these points include 1) maintaining strict control (joint with Oman) over Hormuz, complete with a toll; 2) the end of sanctions on Iran; 3) keeping their enriched uranium; 4) a withdrawal of US forces from the Middle East [stated by the Supreme Leadership Council but not in the 10 Points, so who knows], and 5) some plausible guarantee that Iran would never be attacked again. I've heard rumors that China may have prodded Iran to accept these terms.
In theory, these are relatively confident and maximalist demands. In practice, Iran has already achieved military and economic control over Hormuz and the withdrawal of many US troops and bases from the region, so at least a few of Iran's demands are, to a greater or lesser extent, already achieved, and with little hope for an increasingly exhausted US to undo these achievements short of nukes.
A couple hours after the ceasefire, the Zionist entity began a wave of airstrikes in Lebanon, killing hundreds of civilians, as well as flying drones into Iranian airspace. This was a strange move to make even if you assume - very sensibly - that the US is completely agreement non-capable: why not agree to the ceasefire and simply pretend to negotiate for two weeks while regrouping/repairing what assets you can and then start hitting Iran again?
One theory is that the Zionists are testing to what degree Iran is actually willing to have solidarity with Lebanon and Hezbollah. While the Resistance has been relatively united since October 7th, the formation of separate peaces instead of negotiating terms as a united front has been a major exploitable weakness. Alternatively, it's been proposed that the US didn't even consider using the ceasefire to regroup and deceive Iran, and that Trump merely wanted a way to chicken out of his threat on Iran's electrical grid - the fact that US officials have since stated that Iran's 10 Points were not the same ones they agreed to is a point supporting this, I suppose. If the conflict resumes and Trump does not deliver another 48 hour deadline (and/or makes it something silly like a month from now) then this could be the explanation.
From Iran, I am getting the sense that a lot is happening behind the scenes. Statements from top officials like Araghchi have stated quite plainly that there will be no ceasefire and no negotiations unless the Zionists stop attacking Lebanon, but as of ~24 hours after the ceasefire began, there has been no significant military response from Iran yet. There have apparently been phone calls between Araghchi and numerous regional officials, but it is unknown to what end. All the while, the global economic situation continues to deteriorate. Over the next week or two, the last tankers that left Hormuz before it closed will arrive at their destinations. If the missile exchanges begin once more, then the West, much like most of the rest of the world, will be experiencing all sorts of fuel, energy, food, and product shortages while trying to justify why they broke the ceasefire to kill more Lebanese civilians.
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.
This is interesting. In Canada, especially during the Fenian revolt in the US, Irish people were actually considered less human than slaves or black people. As written by Canadian undercover agent Thomas Beach (op name Henri Le Caron) who infiltrated the Fenian movement up to the highest echelons. His correspondence to Ottawa is incredibly vulgar and Savage towards the Irish. But that's probably just because he was operating amongst the Irish. I'm certain this wouldn't be the case were he in a position squashing slave revolts. But nonetheless... This pattern repeats itself across Canadian history with the French, Irish, Italians, Jews, Slavs and Germans. Of course, this was at a time when the anglo empire was still expanding across the world but there wasn't a single instance where this state sanctioned racism towards whites was undertaken with any kind of hesitation or regret. Of course, it is different now, and Clanada is very much a white supremacist state but historically what was considered "white" has shifted quite a bit just within the context of a single colonial entity. And I have no doubt it would shift again.
Edit: An immediate contemporary example that jumps to mind is the dehumanizing of Russians amongst western liberals. Of course, Russia is very ethnically diverse and not a monolithic European state but most westerners just think of Russians as mostly white color wise. Also LGTBQ+ people or leftists (tankies). all of which are subjected to politically motivated violence and harassment without much pushback from amongst liberals.
So then, what is the primary aspect of this contradiciton between Anglo-American speaking whites (in Canada since that is what I have done the most reading on) and other groups? I can only broadly point to the domination of finance capital first from the British empire and then the subsequent emergence of the American empire. Which Canada had seamlessly transitioned towards following WW2.
When my mum (Slav) arrived in aus she was called all sorts of slurs. The settling of Australia itself was in part an act of attempted ethnic cleansing of Irish people that were supposedly inherently criminal.
Whiteness is a concept that has been slowly extended to different groups (e.g. Greeks, Slavs, Italians, Irish) as the ruling class have needed to recruit more soldiers in their struggle to preserve their privilege.
9Yeah exactly, 100%. In Canada, when it was in the process of ethnically cleansing the western plains of the indigenous people it offered free land to "white" European colonizers to settle and homestead. Slavs (who were considered lazy and dumb) were excluded from this entirely with the Canadian state preferring Germans and British citizens because of their "inherent productivity." Then, when the flow of immigrants slowed down they all of a sudden reversed course on their rhetoric regarding slavs and encouraged them to immigrate to western Canada. Then, with the build-up to WW1 Germans were no longer considered white but cunning "huns" (evoking an image of savage asiatic hordes) who were trying to destroy Canada from within and some actually had their land seized and given to Slavic settlers.
Yes, Clanada is a full onion article. A full onion encyclopedia, actually.
Yeah it's a really interesting topic and it's easy to reduce capitalist imperialism to a purely "racial" project but "race" seems to merely function as a triage of sorts as to who is expendable and at what time. And there is an interplay. For example Saudi Arabia is of higher priority than Ukraine, but the Zionazi entity is of far more importance than Saudi Arabia even if it is of less resource or material utility than Saudi Arabia. Almost always though, the superficial bond or solidarity that is formed based on "race" is just irrelevant when material interests collide. And this topic just hasn't been adequately studied, at least to my knowledge. And having been listening a lot to Gabriel Rockhill and basically his examination of how western academia is essentially compromised, you can guess why it hasn't been studied.