Image is of destruction and damage inside Israel, sourced from this article.
Iran and Israel have struck each other many times over the last few days. There has been a general focus on military facilities and headquarters by both sides, though Israel has also struck oil facilities, civilian structures and hospitals, and in return for this, Iran has struck major scientific centers and the Haifa oil facilities.
Israel appears to have three main aims. First, to collapse the Iranian state, either through shock and breakdown by killing enough senior officials, or via some sort of internal military coup. Second, to try and destroy Iranian nuclear sites and underground missile cities, or at least to paralyze them long enough to achieve the first and third goals. And third, to bring the US into a direct conflict with Iran. This is because the US better equipped to fight them than Israel is (though victory would still not be guaranteed depending on what Iran chooses to do).
Iranian nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground (800 meters), far beyond the depth range of even the most powerful bunker busters (~70 meters or so), and built such that the visible ground entrances are horizontally far away in an unknown direction from the actual underground chambers. Only an extremely competent full-scale American bombing force all simultaneously using multiple of the most powerful conventional (perhaps even nuclear) bunker busters could even hypothetically hope to breach them (and we have seen how, in practice, American bunker busters have largely failed to impair or deter Ansarallah). There are several analysts on both sides who have concluded that it is entirely impossible to physically prevent Iran from building nukes.
I fully expect the US to join the war. I believe the current ambiguity is a deliberate invention of the US while they work to move their military assets into position, and as soon as they are ready, the US will start bombing Iran. After that, Iran’s leadership must - if they haven’t already - harden their hearts, and strike back with no fear, or risk following the path of Libya, Syria, and Iraq, either into either surrender, occupation, or annihilation. Every day where they do not possess a nuke is a day where lives are being lost and cities are being bombed.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s 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.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
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.
Alright I think I’m up to speed.
Armchair general assessment: If Iran has the capability it should preemptive strike every single base that is to be a staging post. By this I mean every single base that the tankers fly to.
The runways should be hit at all of these bases, the exterior bays where the tankers may be kept on the ground should also be hit. 30 missiles, every single base.
Runways should continue to be hit every few hours thereafter.
The US military is an air force. It is entirely reliant on its ability to conduct air operations. Cut off this ability and you buy yourself time.
Every runway in Israel capable of landing any large military cargo plane should be disabled. This will disable all ability for the US to resupply air defences to Israel itself.
Once establishing this, the aircraft carriers become the only available means of delivering anything. This means B-2 bombers can not be used, as they can not be launched from a carrier and will need to fly long range with air-to-air refuelling that also can not be launched from a carrier. Carriers will also be forced to come closer to Iran, this makes them vulnerable.
Strait of Hormuz should be left open, with the threat to all local powers that anyone allowing the US to use their infrastructure for military purposes will cause it to be closed. The Strait should be mined and sealed if any of them do allow the US to use their runways, and those runways should also be hit.
Iran has the missile launching capacity for barrages of at least 200 missiles at a time. They are capable of this if they operate at the capacity they have demonstrated.
hitting runways isn’t very effective, they can be fixed in short order
that’s why she says they should be hit every couple of hours.
I think that’s probably not viable regardless, if they have to send enough missiles to saturate AD for each airbase, they’d deplete stockpiles in no time. IMO hitting as many oil facilities of Gulf States and closing Hormuz immediately makes more sense because Trump already decided to strike a long time ago and you won’t convince him otherwise.
The B-2 can perform attack missions at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet (15,000 m); it has an unrefueled range of more than 6,000 nautical miles (6,900 mi; 11,000 km) and can fly more than 10,000 nautical miles (12,000 mi; 19,000 km) with one midair refueling.
it still needs to be protected by fighter jets to do any mission, it can’t fight for itself it’s still a bomber, regular jets have a range between 2000km and under 5000km
Missed this reply, seems like i don’t get all reply notifications.
B-2 does yes, but it can’t fly alone without fighter support. Those need air-to-air refuelling.
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Iran doesn’t have the missile tech to hit bases that far out. The B2s that will attempt to take out Fordow are stationed on Diego Garcia, well outside the range of most of Iran’s missiles. They may have some that could potentially reach it (the Ghadr-110 might make it, but it’s right at the edge of its range), but it’d be very very difficult.
They have missile launch capability on some of their submarines. These can be for at least Diego Garcia.
Downside is I don’t think they’re going to get to resupply these submarines. Once their payloads are done they will not be able to dock again to resupply without being hit.
According to this article, it’s doubtful the submarines can even get all the way there from Iran without resupply and detection by the US Navy. Granted this is a fed source so take it with a grain of salt, but a submarine attack would be very very risky with only a small chance of success. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/irans-tareq-class-submarines-were-built-for-exactly-one-thing
Submarine detection is dogshit. They won’t stop them. China surfaced a Song-Class submarine in the middle of US wargames directly in the middle of a US carrier group, the Song-Class is a similar Diesel-Electric to the Tareq. The Chinese Song-Class submarine was undetected until surfacing, even during the middle of an event where the US fleet would be performing detection. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/chinese-submarine-appeared-in-the-middle-of-a-carrier-battle-group.html
Submarine detection is genuinely awful. They own the ocean. I do not believe anyone’s cope about being able to prevent submarines, nothing will stop them.
Submarines are fucking everything. Ships are completely at the mercy of them. There is no stopping this shit. If submarines wanted to take out a carrier group, it could happen. I don’t think Diego Garcia is safe at all.
Like I said though, once these subs blow their load that’s it. They aren’t going to be able to resupply.
lol that is such a dick-slinging move
A really good way to humble them and make them re-calculate future options they might have. The US needs regular humbling or it gets really brash as people within its system start to believe their own hype.
This is why I really hope the reports of F35 shootdowns are legit
I believe it’s already too late for Iran to pull that off, let alone technologically feasible for them. I don’t know what the answer is, and unfortunately I think the best answer might be sit down and negotiate with the U.S. now before millions potentially die and the genocide of Gaza has zero hope of being ended. If Iran strikes US bases and does not have direct material support from Russia or China, there is really only delaying the inevitable in a war with the U.S.: absolute ruin of Iranian infrastructure in some of the most difficult to navigate terrain in the world, and utter devastation of their military assets that let them have any chance of standing against western imperialist action in the future.
That doesn’t mean the U.S. will win, achieve regime change, or occupy parts of Iran, but it does mean that Iran will be fucked beyond all recognition for a long, long time. Iran either needs to demonstrate a nuclear test in a remote place within Iran TONIGHT or sit down and negotiate, and I would go as far as to say that it should not even hesitate to accept terms up to no longer launching missiles at Israel.
Nope negotiations are a trap. Trump is demanding immediate unconditional surrender. This will result in the dismantling of the Iranian state, the remnants of the axis of resistance, the completion of the Palestinian genocide and the establishment of Greater Israel. It is a worse case scenario and completely unacceptable. If I were an Iranian and someone suggested this I would smack them. All this martyrdom and pain for nothing? Yeah right
The time to negotiate was approximately a month ago, and Iran refusing to do so (not unreasonably!) has, for better or worse, got them here. I don’t even think Khamenei clapping handcuffs on himself and taking himself to a Tel Aviv prison would stop things now
I fear for the Iranian people that you are right. I know I have a heavy heart for the suffering that will come, and perhaps am imagining only the absolute worst case scenarios. I pray that I’m underestimating Iran because we are looking doom and gloom in the face. But alas, here we are
The ball of history is rolling now, and nobody can stop it. Inshallah Iran will prove its decisions to have been wise
There really is nothing else to do other than to hope that Iran knows what it’s doing (and in our personal lives, to agitate where we can). We’re at the threshold where decades of analysis of an Iran-American war will meet reality, and that is always a messy collision.
the accuracy of the missiles aren’t enough to reliably damage airstrips, but you could argue that targeting them at least planes away from them
Iran is not going to strike first unless they believe there is absolutely no chance of stopping a war with the US diplomatically. It looks very likely right now, but that jump from very likely to certain will mean a lot of suffering for the Iranian people. I do not envy the people who have to make that call right now.