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.
I think any decision to close Hormuz, while the right of Iran, would be premature to take within at least the next day or so. Israel and US aren't as politically united as we see in the media, and the only way to exploit that is to further punish the entity and hope they beg for escalation so much that Trump calls their bluff.
At the same time, I'm not a political or military scientist who is certain even Trump can keep control of a military and political class otherwise united around the Israeli death cult.
At the same time, a comprehensive strike that can guarantee significant damage to the largest assembly of American warships since pearl harbour may be the opportunity to bring the war home to the average American citizen, who does not understand any language other than the sight of American flags draped over coffins. It may steel some of their spirits, but it will remind many others that their apathy to the empire will not go unpunished.
I actually agree with you here, which would surprise myself from a few days ago. Or at least I don't think it's automatically the right move to make - even assuming that Russia and China and other key allies don't get too pissy at them, which they might. I can't imagine China is super enthused about it but I don't know what the discussion between them and Iran is behind closed doors.
But anyway, assuming that it would cause no allies to abandon them, I think it basically hinges on whether the US is going to attack again or if this single attack does genuinely represent a desire to do a propaganda spectacle and then get out. If it's the former, then you might as well attack now; nobody would blame you for it outside of the West because there is no sane definition by which it would be an aggression rather than a response. If it's the latter, then I think opting for a smaller escalation might be smarter. Now, the problem is that the US's word cannot be trusted. And we say that a lot, but it is uniquely true in this war, where the US has deliberately lied in order to deceive (or try to deceive) Iran and make their attacks more potent by catching them off-guard. Usually US diplomacy is passive deceit and half-truths, but the last two times it was akin to a guy shouting "I'm not going to stab you! I'm your friend! I won't hurt you!" while actively charging at you with a knife.
But I also can't see a world where the US stays out for any substantial amount of time while Israel is getting hit by missiles daily, even if Trump and his team may or may not (depending on if the stated intention to not wanting to start a new forever war is also a lie), so Iran might as well cut off Hormuz anyway? I don't know, ultimately I think Iran will make the right decision and I imagine they've wargamed this scenario out.
This is something that's very hard to pin down; like, every time a US official and an Israeli official has disagreed, it was either quickly paved over and more missiles and money sent, kayfabe for the media, or theater to try and deceive the Resistance. I think the chances of driving a real wedge between Israel and the US that would result in the US saying "No, we will not keep supplying you, you have gone too far" is essentially zero. I don't think even Israel dropping nukes would make that divide happen.
if i were china i would be more than happy to let iran close the strait if it ensured that the americans would be goaded into a boots on the ground campaign. russians would get a blank check in ukraine (well, i guess the EU might be pressed to do something...) and the chinese likewise for westpac.
I dont think a ground invasion is on the cards even within wettest dreams of CIA strategists. Not at least until they've exhausted their bomb stockpile on trying to turn Iran into neoLibya