this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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Bulletins and News Discussion from June 16th to June 22nd, 2025 - Iran, Harden Your Heart
(hexbear.net)
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.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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.
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useless, evidence free/vibe-based musings: look, obviously it's no joke and anything could happen, but: I think Taco Trump is a real thing. we saw this in Trump 1, we've seen this with the tariff regimes -- dude does not have the bandwidth or perseverance to commit to any big project. he wants to chill and hold court and rack up easy wins -- he does not want a huge mess on his plate, he does not want to go to briefings everyday, he does not want to affectively cede power to the brass (which he will have to do if this blows up)*. he likes exploding Soleimani, he likes funding Ukraine pre-war (these are easy sops to the hardliners, where any blowback doesn't immediately redound back to him). i think it's clear that he is or feels obligated to appease the hardliners as he dismisses their grander plans.
and so i think the state of things is something like this: Trump really hopes that he can figure out a way to just drop a MOAB and claim a W an get out of there (i'm sure he doesn't really care if it actually succeeds or not); the hardliners are putting their feet in the bargaining door by braying for immediate declaration of war, and Trump is appeasing them by at least gathering USA forces at the gates; and that's good enough for the hardliners because it increases dramatically Iran intentionally or accidentally killing Americans and forcing Trump's hand.
the upshot of this, i think, is for Iran to be cool. you don't have to trust the americans; you can trust, assuming that you can establish a credible, durable threat of bombing imperial oil wells** and closing the straight, that Trump doesn't want to light the commercial world on fire -- that he doesn't want to saddle himself with more work and meetings and his rich business colleagues yelling at him. he does not want the smoke.
*i really think that the threat of a loss of practical power to the institutional military is/has been a serious factor in producing Trump the dove. however, it may be now, in Trump 2, that this factor is diminished, if it's the case that Trump was able to effectively remove the institutionalist neocons and replace them with loyalist MAGA deus volt freaks; then maybe he doesn't care if they're calling the shots.
**could be wrong here as well. i assume spiking the cost of oil would be bad for everyone, but the geopolitics/macro nerds in the thread might better explain that oil going up is bad for everyone but comparatively better for the US, and is a win actually.
He also doesn't like losers who go begging for help , but is also petty and vindictive. And could keel over any day, has whatever mental faculties he has very strained.
Feels like its up to the DMs dice rolls.
This is really a great encapsulation of it all.
Trump is playing a fine line between appeasing his war hawk advisors who would otherwise air their dirty laundry, and not wanting to get into a mess he knows will kill his isolationist rhetoric and everything his political career stands on.
As for whether he makes the call? Fuck knows. I'm certain it was most likely the first night after the NSC meeting and Iran's "remembered for centuries" statement. Every day after may be followed by more buildup, but politically is a sign that Trump isn't as willing to press the button as we thought. The buildup since is definitely a sign that the war hawks are trying to further convince trump of their superior position and ability to contain the Iranian response.
You know, I have to wonder if Trump watched that Tucker Carlson / Ted Cruz interview? Tucker absolutely curb stomped Cruz and really made him look like a devious little asshole. Tucker laid out the case for not getting involved pretty well. It honestly may have altered Trump’s perceptions of this situation. We know Trump loves his TV and will base decisions on what he sees.
If Tucker fucking Carlson is the person who ended up saving the lives of countless Iranians, that’s an all time “extremely critical support” moment.
This is not the first time. Trump's indecisiveness is partly because with Tucker gone now both sides of the media want the war.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Someone said this was fake.
another useless musing, which i will graciously append here instead of adding as a new comment:
i guess maybe we would've have heard more from other sources if this were the case, but still: i'm skeptical that Trump knew/understood what Israel was up to here. sure, he brags about being in the know, but isn't this likely just occidental face-saving? like, "oh, that terrible, insanely reckless and stupid strategic play that Israel made? the one that, had they done it without our say so, would make us look like little idiots and worms? ya, we knew about it and thought it was a cool idea actually." bullshit. they would rather look stupid and in control than smart and out of control; they don't have the guts to call out Israel's complete horseshit privately, and of course they can't do it publicly. it reminds of Merkel disclaiming her entire foreign policy and credibility just so she could pretend that she wasn't outsmarted by Putin (which she wasn't, so there should be no shame in that (she was outsmarted by Biden/the Americans)). these people are delicate, self-defeating dipshits.