My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.
preamble
Aside from the virtually daily Iranian strikes on the Oman route, the main threat that the US is facing in this newest phase of the war is logistics. With Bahrain and the UAE unsafe, the closest safest port in the theater is Diego Garcia, which is over 2000 miles away. Either the aircraft carriers would have to go to Diego Garcia to restock, which would be even less planes and missiles available should hostilities restart suddenly, or goods have to be shuttled to the aircraft carriers from Diego Garcia. This latter option appears to be too much for the US to handle, with widespread reports of dwindling supplies and morale on the USS Abraham Lincoln (and, to a lesser extent, the USS George HW Bush). These reports have culminated in the USS George Washington being sent from the Pacific to replace the Lincoln, which was the sole aircraft carrier in that whole theater. There are six more carriers in maintenance, leaving two carriers left that could even hypothetically be called upon should the USS George HW Bush need replacement; both are currently undergoing training, and of these two, the USS Theodore Roosevelt might be available soon; perhaps even as soon as September. I’m unsure whether the Roosevelt will be sent to the Pacific to replace the Washington, or if it’ll be sent to the Middle East to replace the Bush. Nonetheless, that the situation has deteriorated to the point where we can speculate on how very limited naval vessels are going to be distributed is yet one more indication among many of the decline of US naval power. The symbolism was too much for me to ignore, hence the title: the last aircraft carrier in the Pacific being forced to leave, and not under military pressure in some hypothetical war against China, but to try and relieve logistical burdens elsewhere in a war of the US’s own making.
This joins Trump’s statements that the US will only be taking a very limited part in the South Korean military exercises. This is nominally because of the “great ties” the US shares with the DPRK, but this is an embarrassingly transparent face-saving statement. The DPRK is an increasingly major potential threat to South Korea, a major regional power and economy, but are also helping Russia with both manpower and materiel and getting military experience and data on their missiles’ effectiveness in return.
The US’s Under Secretary of War, Elbridge Colby, recently visited the Philippines. There, he gave a speech that promised to continue the construction of a defensive network that would deny China the possibility of militarily advancing through the Pacific by stationing US forces inside friendly countries. This is the NATO approach: our mere presence will deter the enemy because they would not want to start a direct war with us, and in exchange, you have to hand over billions upon billions of dollars. Colby gave the Philippines that most backhanded of compliments, the “model ally”, and stated that the US was “definitely not disengaging from Asia”. My “We aren’t pivoting away from Asia” shirt has people asking a lot of questions that are already answered by my shirt.
If you’re a US-friendly country in the Pacific and possess even the slightest sense of self-preservation, you are surely feeling nervous. The US is moving its aircraft carrier out of the theater. Overseas, you’ve seen how Iran - a very strong regional country, to be sure, but not as powerful as the industrial juggernaut and nuclear superpower that is China - has nonetheless crippled several undefendable US bases, has exhausted a very large amount of American air defense missiles, is holding the global economy hostage, and the US can seemingly do nothing to stop them. You have to be looking at your own US bases, likely expensive and unpopular, and all the money you’re handing over to the US, and glancing at how the Gulf states are bickering of being betrayed by their ally who promised them protection and immediately retreated. You have to be looking at your economy and its dependence on China. You have to be looking at Ukraine, and the unenviable state of destruction it has been driven to as a puppet of the US. You have to be looking at China itself, and how its military is rapidly developing in all fields, and how it’s even catching up on microchip development. In all, you have to be really hoping that China is serious that they only plan a peaceful reunification with Taiwan, and that the US will not do something incredibly, stupidly reckless in their decline.
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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.
It doesn’t matter that much as I said with regards to higher prices eventually as I outlined in my post about why a crash is fine for the bourgeoisie. As long as it happens after the midterms there’s no pressure on this admin or the US in general to really change strategies even temporarily.
There’s no serious evidence the US reserves will run out by August or even September and no pro-Iranian propagandists on twitter don’t count. Demand decline after summer is a real thing even under normal circumstances and with some flow coming through (maybe up to half pre-war even) that stems the use of the reserves and preserves them for longer. I just don’t think it will hit before the mid-terms as it would be a disaster not just for the Republicans but for support for the zionist entity which would hit the Democrats hard.
The moment of maximum pressure would be $8/gal gas for the US heading into the midterms, that would be a disaster for the US and the zionist entity and support for it. After the midterms they can just coast and fuck the workers with high gas prices while proclaiming it’s Iran or environmental regulations (expect them to strip the hell out of those) that are causing these higher prices.
So I’m not sure what the point is. The US didn’t crack over the OPEC embargo which was much worse back in the 70s over support of the zionist entity, they didn’t crush all those campus protestors and create a renewed anti-zionist movement within even the right with their heavy-handed support of the entity to drop it now. Sure US loses some bases, mildly inconvenient and a definite Iranian win and demonstration of missile and drone power but strategically I don’t see them being pushed out of the region entirely, nor congress bending the knee and repealing sanctions, nor the zionist entity rolling back its occupation of Lebanon by a single mile in response to this. So at best Iran gets some money while the US gets to hold its head high without a brutal and crushing visible loss and that flow of money could be challenged at any time if the US enforces sanctions on transfers of funds to Iran by gulf states.
The thing about control of the strait vs just bombing Saudi refineries into dust is that there’s a good case to be made under international law that Iran has a right to charge these fees and to control that waterway. There’s no case to be made under international law that they can just bomb the Saudis or anyone else for not letting them get a cut of their oil by routing it away from Iran’s territory to avoid paying them. China and Russia would recognize and stand behind ratified Iranian control of the strait and fees for transit, they wouldn’t stand behind them bombing extraction and refineries throughout the region because they’re avoiding their tolls.
The news that Iran is preparing for a new wave of attacks unless the US actually implements the MoU is great news. Because if they fail to do that then this is a slow slide into irrelevancy while the US strings them along forever. We’ll see how long those attacks last and whether they’re performative or not or lead to more stringing along when they come I suppose but it’s something positive at least and anything that hits the US and its dogs is good.
There’s many other considerations such as a desire to spur creation of alternative capacity by raising oil prices enough to get other projects elsewhere in the world under way, places much more safely under US empire control so this continuing with higher prices may not even bother some of these planners so much as suit them for their longer term designs. They do keep talking of short-term pain for long-term gain. The US may not be able to rebuild a WW2 size arms industry no matter how much money they throw at it but fossil fuels exploration, exploitation, etc is very much actively opening and tapping new sources and if they can convince those companies that the new reality is limited, unstable transit, fees to Iran, etc through Hormuz they may be able to get them to invest the thinking may go and that’s not unreasonable.
posting style reminds me of xhs
vague article followed by more and more claims
readers note: iran is considered by commentators like mearsheimer to hold “all the cards”
The Biden playing 4D chess claim while in actually just having dementia and cancer is still iconic.
There is really no pressure for them to change strategies outside of the public uncertainty both at home and abroad. We do not live in a world driven by materialism, we live in a world of idealism that only responds to materialist concerns when the crisis occurs We are not at the point of materialist crisis, and it is uncertain if it will reach a point of materialist crisis where the elite have to act before the proletariat do. And the proletariate are at a historic point of disorganization, so I expect extremely little from them. However, that doesn’t mean that these entities will not act irrationally out of purely ideological motivations.
Due to this, I doubt that will be the case that they will not change strategies, as they already have had to change strategies, publicly and repeatedly, and it is clear that nobody, even those supposedly in charge, really knows what the endgame looks like here.
What matters more than anything is that Iran has been able to make the U.S. look extremely incompetent on the world stage, and has not allowed them secure any of their actual stated objectives, outside of ‘kill alot of people’. This denial alone has been enough to scare the piss out of the elites, and sometimes that is enough to be thankful for. It certainly punctures the myth of American omnipotence and invincibility.
If they decide, irrationally, that they must demonstrate complete dominance and pursue further military action, such as invasion, it will likely only serve to place more egg on their face.
“All things are chaos under heaven. The situation is excellent.”