With the funeral of the late Khamenei drawing crowds of millions of Iranians, and many dozen visits from foreign delegations and high-up figures from around the world, the war itself has hit a temporary lull. It appears that the battle over whether the Omani route is legitimate is continuing, with transits sometimes relatively elevated (but still nowhere close to pre-war levels) due to American air support, and sometimes stopped by an Iranian strike. What’s currently happening in the negotiations is extremely unclear to me because of a massive deluge of conflicting information and intentional disinformation.
However, with Vance confirming on live TV that they are treating the MoU as an opportunity to refill oil stocks (not physically possible to any significant degree given current transits and the SPR’s current level) and that they’ll see where they’ll go from there, the US maintaining that Iran cannot be allowed to have a toll/service fee system, and of course the ethnic cleansing in Lebanon, I currently can’t see how this ends without a return to war. The alternative, of course, is that either the US’s or Iran’s position is much precarious than they’re letting on, and they are bluffing but will capitulate under serious fire. I’ve been keeping my mind as open to the latter possibility as I have the former, and of course, it’s not as if Iran’s economic situation is all sunshine and rainbows and so that could potentially be the deciding factor, but to me, militarily, Iran has never looked stronger. The missile cities truly stood the test, and its air defense network is still plenty powerful enough to deter American planes and drones from getting too close to its airspace.
Elsewhere, we are nearing the completion of the latest wave of comprador installation in Latin America, with Colombia and Peru returning to a hard right political stance after a brief stint with more left wing politics. Venezuela is also being forced into submission regardless of which party is technically in charge under threat of overwhelming force by the US, after the US successfully bypassed Venezuela’s major and only defence, a well-armed and party-loyal population in the hundreds of thousands, by simply saying “If you take arms against us on the ground, we will do you what we did to Gaza.” Whether the Venezuelan people will continue to accept this humiliation or rise up is still up to debate, but if there is no response by the government at all, it does seem to spell a pause, though not necessarily the end, of Chavismo as it is currently conceived, and new developments will be needed to take Venezuela forwards. And, finally, Cuba has been forced to take the Dengist route (reform and opening up) for the possibility of survival after nearly a century of a more tightly controlled socialist economy, as the siege this time around proved even more impactful than even the very difficult times after the fall of the USSR. The next logical steps for the US will be to crush Brazilian and Mexican leftist politics, so we may see the ignominious return of the Bolsonaro faction, and perhaps even the man himself.
As I currently see it, with electoral tampering and fraud now both very commonplace and essentially unpunishable by leftist forces, there’s three main paths forward for the continent: 1) a return to the anti-imperialist guerrilla warfare that characterized much of the 20th century due to the once-again-confirmed failure of electoral politics; 2) just accepting submission to regional US hegemony as the US withdraws and relocates its forces and agents from Eurasia under fire, and hoping that maybe they can win an election here or there and that Somebody Abroad Does Something (the mythical “international community”, etc); or 3) the allure of the growing Chinese hegemony proves too powerful for even the American compradors to resist and they sign developmentalist business deals with them that undercut the IMF and World’s Bank plan to maintain imperialist underdevelopment.
Last week’s thread is here.
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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:
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.
Fars: Moments ago, residents of Aqqala heard the sound of several explosions in the vicinity of the city. Some local sources report that several enemy projectiles struck the Aq Tekeh-Khan bridge—located along the railway line in the western part of Aqqala (Northeast Iran).
https://nitter.net/bonzerbarry/status/2075003634144665667
(the location is notable, cause it’s 95% azerbaijan entity buddies. well target is also notable, cause other countries attack bridges if they are not russia)
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian commented on the World Cup:
“The U.S. government’s conduct as World Cup host follows its familiar foreign policy: bending rules, humiliating rivals, creating obstacles, and cheating. This is their MAGA playbook. Iran rejects such games. We stand firmly for our rights.”
Another wave of US attacks on Iran has started. Time for Iran to respond in a very serious way.
The NATO Summit in Ankara in a nutshell:
Wollt Ihr den totalen Krieg?
T: I think anything that happens will be over very quickly and will only make it safer, including for oil. Oil is going to be very free, very easy, and it’s going to happen very fast. We have the Hormuz Strait, the boats have pulled out, I mean there’s a gusher of oil right now, we have a lot of oil and uh no, anything that happens is going to happen very fast, we’re not looking for Long Term.
Q: “The war seems to be a strategic dead end for you, why are you apparently unable to end the Iran war?”
T: So I think we’re doing just the opposite. The Iran war has been a tremendous military success and, you know, I can only answer the question by saying they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon, i think it’s been, I was there for one reason, that Iran can not have…a nuclear weapon. I call it, we uh, de-Nuclearized Iran and that’s happened. They can never have a nuclear weapon. That stuff is so far down under a mountain, it’s a granite mountain that collapsed on top of it. Take… months to get it out, I think it’s a tremendous success, Iran. And you see the oil prices are lower than they were when they started. Look they have no military left, their air force is gone…
Zaluzhny in an English language oped on Russia winning the war of attrition and coyly calling for NATO to get more directly involved
— 🇺🇸/🇯🇵 President Trump: ‘The Islamic Republic of Japan shot 111 missiles at our aircraft carrier’ (Source: Middle East Spectator)
spoiler
edit: don’t know why he’s so large lol
Reuters: Trump says US will give Patriot missile license to Ukraine
I fail to see how this could be anything more than a symbolic move. The most they could possibly do in Ukraine would be assembly from “parts kits,” and at that point, why not just do it in Europe? I guess it could be harder for Russia to track the shipments of parts as opposed to completed missiles.
Trump says ceasefire is ‘over’ after US and Iran trade strikes - BBC
Article
US President Donald Trump says the ceasefire agreement with Iran is “over”, blasting the country’s leadership as “scum” and “cuckoo” after fresh exchanges of fire.
Speaking ahead of a Nato summit in Turkey, the president said US negotiators could continue talks “if they want” but said he saw it as “a waste of time”.
Oil prices jumped after Trump’s comments, although are still well below the highs seen during the full closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Tuesday night into Wednesday saw the worst trading of strikes between the US and Iran since they signed an interim deal in June that called for an end to the conflict and safe passage of vessels through the strait.
“I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore they’re scum … they’re led by sick people and they’re vicious, violent people,” Trump said.
“We make a deal. They [Iran] go outside, talk to the press, they say ‘we never even talked about it’. There’s something wrong with them. They’re cuckoo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”
US Central Command (Centcom) said on Tuesday it had launched “powerful” strikes in response to attacks on three tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
On Wednesday, Iran said it targeted US military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait in retaliation to the US strikes.
The US also said it had revoked its temporary suspension of sanctions on Iranian oil sales.
Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf accused the US of breaching their Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on this issue, and others, including the attacks in southern Iran and “violating Iranian adjustments in the Strait”.
“The era of bullying and extortion is over. It leads nowhere. We don’t fold,” he said.
Nato chief Mark Rutte described the American strikes as “absolutely necessary”, saying that Iran was “basically violating the ceasefire”.
It is not the first time strikes occurred after the MoU was signed on 17 June.
The US launched a series of strikes on Iran on 26 June after an Iranian projectile hit a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz. Further US strikes took place on 27 June, following an attack on a tanker. But later that month both sides had agreed to “stand down”.
Part of the MoU’s 14 points is for an “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts”.
Iran agreed to use its “best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days”.
Both sides had continued negotiations on the terms of a permanent end to the war, but talks were paused during funeral ceremonies for the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of US-Israel strikes on Iran.
Ceremonies are taking place in Iraq on Wednesday, with the final rites and burial set for Mashhad in north-east Iran on Thursday.
It is not clear when talks will resume after this latest round of strikes, as Trump responded to a question about further negotiations with the comment: “I don’t care”.
“Frankly, I don’t want to waste my time with them. Now, I’ll let our wonderful negotiators keep talking if they want, but I don’t see it,” Trump said.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them. They’re liars.”
Trump also referenced his special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, calling them “good people” who could negotiate if they wanted to. The pair previously played a role in peace talks.
“I’ll speak to our negotiators, if they want to negotiate they’re good people - Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner - but they have to come back to me, as far as I’m concerned it’s just a waste of time.”
Very low import demand from China helped keep crude futures prices low (in combination with lots of market manipulation), but with the exports curbs being lifted, crude demand from China is expected to increase.
Trump Tells Bessent To Halt US Trade With Spain, Calls Madrid A “Wasted Cause”
…OK? How can you halt trade with an individual EU country?
What do you think will happen in the next few days in the Iran War?
About a week ago,
RubioJD Vance (IIRC) said that the plan with the MoU is to refill the reserves and then attack again. Now the MoU is dead (the US never implemented the MoU anyway) and reserves have never been lower. I guess they believe that low oil futures prices are good enough, lol.From Al Jazeera:
Trump says MoU to end Iran war is ‘over’
A few quotes:
United States President Donald Trump says the ceasefire with Iran is “over”, describing Iranian leaders as “sick people” after Iran and the US exchanged attacks.
“I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them any more, they’re scum,” Trump said on Wednesday at a NATO summit in the Turkish capital Ankara, when asked if the ceasefire with Iran was over.
“They’re scum, they’re sick people, they’re led by sick people, and they’re vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it.”
Trump also said he would speak to his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who have been leading US negotiations with the Iranians, but insisted it was up to Tehran to return to the table.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them. They’re liars.”
Trump’s comments came after Iran said it hit 85 US military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait in retaliation for US attacks on its Hormozgan province and the port city of Mahshahr.
I know he’s shameless but calling Iran “liars” after the last few weeks is genuinely something.
And Hegseth just cancelled his today trip to occupied Palestine.
