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.
Looks like while clearing a corridor for the B-2 Spirit stealth bombers to bomb Natanz and Isfahan, the US EA-18G Growlers and F-35s opened up some more corridors into Iranian airspace, the US states that they fired 31 anti radiation munitions, targeting air defence radars. Israel has made use of these corridors to bomb missile facilities in Yazd, next to some tunnel entrances, with Israeli jets flying over 2200km via Iraq and Syria. The longest range strike into Iran yet. Yazd is 1850km from Tel Aviv as the crow flies. Israel posted footage of the strikes, likely from the EOTS of their F-35 fighter aircraft.
F-35 EOTS example footage
This is part of why I think it's not over, in just one night using the EA-18Gs (which Israel don't have), the US opened corridors into the heart of Iran, which Israel immediately used. Israel will be desperate for more of this, while they have F-35s, they do not have the EA-18G and it's capabilities.
Thanks for all these informative posts that aren't just the same Iranian hopium propaganda that every one else here is spouting.
If they can control your skies, if they can operate unopposed they can dismantle any semblance of an organized military and upend civilian life so badly that people will be more open to regime change. At the very least they can destroy industry and make a lot of people unemployed and desperate and recruitable by foreign intelligence.
"People are in the streets supporting the government though". Yeah and they were for Assad too until they weren't. The Iranian people don't actually like their government that much, they just resent the idea of the zionists or US putting a regime on them more than it but not all who are there will see whoever the west lines up for it as a western puppet and there will be those ethnic and religious minorities especially who see it as liberation and support it. So there is still great danger here. I hope for another mess-up like Ukraine but I'm not convinced yet. This all is still in the early stages and we don't know what if anything the west has in its back pockets ready to pull out.
People will point out Yemen but Yemen started poorer and less developed than Iran when it was attacked and Ansarallah's forces have been built in a certain way that makes them harder to dismantle while Iran still has that centralized command and control, centralized production, etc, etc. Maybe Iran will get there with people who have less to lose but they're not going to get a quick win adapting to that situation and it has a lot of points of failure in the transition possible.
These strikes also further solidify my belief that Iran is lying about shooting down f-35s and has downed zero but the anger from their people is alleviated by these claims whereas the knowledge of total helplessness against foreign air power when you've known this was coming for 20 years would be a rage-inducing moment that would threaten the rule of the government. They're likely also underplaying the damage to Fordow though I suspect they probably did move the material. I tend to think the zionist claim about it being damaged and degraded but not destroyed and not possible to fully destroy is likely correct. Fact is though that facility is now useless given it's been struck once and can be again so it surviving doesn't mean a lot strategically or tactically for Iran though it's a PR win.
The question then becomes where can they hide the nuclear material to continue enrichment. They'd need a facility more hardened than Fordow and it's hard to construct something like that in secret from the satellites and spy networks on any reasonable timescale so most likely it's in a less hardened facility that relies on secrecy. And if that secrecy is broken and I'm sorry to say the zionist entity is very good at spying both human-int and hacking and it gets out to the zionists/US then they can kiss that goodbye.
So a lot of moving pieces. I wish the Iranians the best but they're not as strong as I'd long hoped and if they get into a fight with the US it might be a very long and messy one and it might be one where they're confined to fighting mostly in their borders and lobbing things at the zionist entity which does little to stop US influence and exercise of power over the region.
Doomer
Nah, IMO this is a level-headed analysis.