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.
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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.
Before this is removed for 'not news', do you know why Marmitelover hit
?
him and xhs are probably just lying low so they dont lose their accumulated 'credibility' making further (incorrect and minimally falsifiable) predictions from positions amenable to the extant imperial order given the current instability.
What "incorrect and minimally falsifiable" predictions did @MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net and @xiaohongshu@hexbear.net make exactly?
The last time I saw anything from Marmitelover was their (excellent and correct) analysis on the US military buildup and logistics in the months prior to the Iran War before they went silent, and XHS' main schtick is criticizing China for their neoliberal mindset by not focusing on fiscal deficits/ net imports more to improve domestic consumption, which is a position that hasn't been proven wrong yet given the CPC itself is now starting to recognize it.
I think it's far more likely both are just busy with their lives and don't want to waste time arguing with terminally online idealists who keep calling anyone who applies a good material analysis a "doomer".
I sent one of the moderators a message on the 29th or 30th of March explaining why I wouldn't be online anymore and said that they were free to tell people why (with less detail than the private message). In short, career change, and I really don't want to screw up this career change. So no time for posting.
All good comrade, some folks here have been throwing big accusations against you recently with little to no basis (one comment straight up called you a reactionary that peddles US/Zionist propaganda) and I felt it unfair that you were not present to defend yourself.
By all means though, you do not have any obligation to post or prove yourself to anyone here.
Nothing's changed lol
There are a handful of users on here who have had beef with marmite for a long time over dumb shit that has nothing to do with what's been discussed in this comment thread or the news mega in general, and are just using their absence in this comment thread as an opportunity to talk shit.
There's also a contingent that have held a grudge over the times they were right specifically because they looked at the material reality on the ground instead of taking friendly propaganda sources as gospel.
I didn’t see a lot of predictions, but there were statements about “air superiority” that were just vibes based, and statements about the number of lost aircraft that could have come directly from Centcom. Anyone is likely to make incorrect predictions; being unable to accept what has already happened is a different thing, imo.
Shipwreck's 2024 election takes aged like milk. Just jaw-droppingly wrong on so many accounts. I made a joke about how they switched accounts so people wouldn't be able to read their awful awful election takes which some people didn't like lol.
MarmiteLover123 had a pretty bad analysis about Iranian Internet traffic if I remember correctly. They thought that the loser shah's son getting Internet traffic on his social media account meant there was a secret segment of Iranian society who liked the shah's son and not just bots.
Was there ever any confirmation that shipwreck and xiaohongshu were the same person? Going back to shipwreck's account shows it's been completely scrubbed so I can't review their 2024 US election comments, but they did have similar views on China and I think they both favoured books by Michael Hudson.
Yes I do remember that, but he quickly retracted that claim when called out on it.
Nonetheless, I do highly appreciate both of their analyses on the main topics they focus on, and I don't really condone the idea of unfairly bashing some of our most well-informed commentators while they are absent as it goes against the policy objectives of this community.
We're only Human after all, and everyone is bound to make a mistake at some point.
Most of the awful awful election takes were from another account. It was either TrueLiberal or Kaplaya or something like that. It was also the account where they asked that question "what should China do if it gets nuked by the US?" They would write paragraphs upon paragraphs about how Biden is a 5-d chess grandmaster and how China blew its chances at dedollarization and how Biden is a much more cunning imperialist than Trump only to end it with "anyways, Biden is better on trans issues, so you should vote for Biden."
I've only properly interacted with XHS once. It was about China and corruption (later spiraling off to be about bureaucracy and also culture and tradition as driving forces of history and development) around 2-3 months back. I felt that he clearly has read many books and articles but that his analysis was idealist and not very sound to put it mildly.
I think a lot of people remembered that debate because the mods highlighted it and it literally went through multiple megathreads lol.
I did read through some of that discussion as Chinese history is a particular interest of mine and I thought you and XHS both made good points, but I didn't see the conclusion of that as I felt it was getting too long winded from you and XHS just repeating their thesis without coming to a compromise.