SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him] @ SeventyTwoTrillion @hexbear.net

"Crises teasingly hold out the possibility of dramatic reversals only to be

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At a certain point I just block those people. Not immediately of course, I do value different perspectives and am fine seeing people challenge the military commentators I check up on like Simplicius, but I have even less patience for people who deliver analysis that turns out to be incorrect or misleading than I do for people who are just venting their frustrations. I've seen way too many confidently wrong "serious analysts", particularly in the West, who rely on a shaky foundation and set of facts that, if not outright incorrect, are only correct in very specific contexts and those contexts don't apply. And at this point, over three years into the Ukraine War and nearly two years into Al Aqsa Flood, I'm deathly tired of it all.

Like, imagine if you had to reconstruct the story of the Ukraine War using information SOLELY from the Ukrainian side. Even if you were trying to be objective or even Russia-friendly, the available data would force you to conclude that Russia has lost like ten million soldiers while Ukraine has lost like, 5 dudes and a couple tanks. That's what trying to reconstruct the story of this war using information mostly gleaned from Zionist-leaning accounts would be like.

thankfully my blocklist is pretty short and occasionally at zero people because I check every few months to see if they're still around and it turns out they got bored and left

can't forget the copy of Mein Kampf

Syria is the only force so far that has been meaningfully defeated by Israel

it's not really talked about in the western media but Hamas is still regularly conducting strikes and ambushes inside Gaza, and that plus with Hezbollah still present albeit temporarily "pacified" (plus Israel's bizarre move of taking more land in Syria which only extends them further) means that Israel's armed forces are under quite a lot of strain, to the extent that they have to risk doing an unpopular conscription program of groups that have previously been exempt so that they have enough soldiers

Netanyahu literally started the strikes on Iran just before a vote of no confidence was about to be done, prompted due to the social breakdown of Israeli society caused by his unending wars

It's like the world's shittiest feint because it's already obvious what targets the US will go after and the weapons systems they'll use to do it because they've been talking about it nonstop

coming from the same brain geniuses that created the 2023 Ukraine counteroffensive, whose intended target was known for months in advance and gave Russia plenty of time to create a series of fortifications that wasn't breakable because of that preparation time

who?

Yemen says it will resume targeting US warships in the Red Sea if Washington intervenes militarily in support of Israel against Iran.

In a new statement, the Yemeni Armed Forces warned that any direct US involvement in aggression against Iran would be treated as part of the broader Zionist project to dominate the region—one that has already targeted Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.

Calling Iran a principal obstacle to that plan, the statement reaffirmed Yemen’s readiness to respond to any escalation and declared solidarity with any Arab or Muslim country facing Israeli attacks.

I don't think this will shift US decision-making out of bombing Iran (that seems inevitable) but I think it's still pretty significant. Yemen alone was able to tie up a pretty considerable amount of naval resources including interceptor missiles, and I have my doubts that the US will be any more effective than they were last time (that is, not very). Ideally for the Resistance, an aircraft carrier has to be forced to engage with Yemen instead of Iran. In the best case scenario, maybe they even sink one, or more realistically score a notable hit that forces a retreat and months of maintenance.

What an inspiring leadership and population. Yemen will be remembered for centuries for doing so much to help defeat imperialism when they have so little.

Apologies for the lack of a new thread. I haven't forgotten about this, I've just been struggling to find time to get on it while events in the Middle East are going on. Israel must have timed their operation to begin when we finished this book or something.

Anyway, given that this week was supposed to be epilogue week, I don't think it matters that much, but I will be posting a sort of containment thread next week. My proposed schedule (to start the next book in mid-July) might be yet further delayed because I'll probably be spending a big chunk of my free time on the news mega, especially if the US enters the conflict. For now I'll keep the date of the beginning of the next book a little open-ended as I don't want to promise something I can't keep to, but assuming WW3 doesn't start, I'm thinking maybe the end of July, early August. Also, perhaps we should shift our next geopolitical reading to the Middle East, so if anybody has any strong recommendations on that front, I'm all ears.

With the new Chinese railway it's certainly plausible to me that they could get the materials to up missile production if China decided to sneakily send some their way (there was an article a little while ago about how China was sending enough of a particular compound that it could be used to make hundreds of ballistic missiles), but I totally bow to expert opinion on this one.

Simplicius: Israel Buckles as Iran War Shifts to New Drag-Out Phase

I have full access to this piece as it's free, and it's pretty long, so I will once again be summarizing.

• Iran just concluded talks in Geneva with Western representatives and failed to reach a deal as Iran will still not end enrichment, will not end its missile program, and will not negotiate until Israel stops attacking them. Simplicius points out the hypocrisy of the West vis-a-vis Russia ("Russia must end hostilities and withdraw from Ukraine entirely, THEN we can negotiate! Israel, of course, doesn't need to do the same thing with Iran").
• Iran keeping to its original aims is encouraging, indicating that they think an attritional war with Israel is likely to work. That they're bluffing is certainly possible but doesn't seem probable.
• Iran has been taking significant damage, though with Israel reusing the same videos a lot, it takes a while to properly analyse things. Radar sites have been hit, and there are about 80 verified hits on Iranian ballistic missile launchers.
• Simplicius doesn't know how many ballistic missiles Iran has (well, nobody except Iran really knows) but agrees it's somewhere in the low thousands (~3000, maybe more). Some sources claim 1500 have been fired already, while more precise graphs count 500 total launched.
• Iran can produce up to 300 ballistic missiles per month according to Western estimates. As long as Iran fires 10 or less missiles per day, they can keep firing basically indefinitely without wearing down stockpiles for when they're critically needed (e.g. the US joins the war).
• Israel's ability to intercept these missiles has been very degraded, so Iran could actually fire even less and achieve the same result. Iran could be thinking that they'll just fire ~5 per day and slowly build up stockpiles over the course of a long attritional war (months or years), even if they lose a couple missiles every day to Israeli bombing. We are seeing this in practice - that Iran is firing less missiles for the same overall result.
• Iranian senior official Mohsen Rezaee has publically stated that Iran has fired "over 400 missiles" and "over 600 drones" and that "dozens of missiles have hit Israel", which seems to match the graphs carefully counting up to about ~500 missile launches. On the face of it, this means a ~75% interception rate for Israel, and that's certainly a valid way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that many of these missiles were very old missiles that were used to waste interceptors so that more advanced missiles could get through later, and Israel itself is admitting that its interception rate is rapidly falling.
• Rezaee, back in March, stated that they knew that war with Israel is inevitable and was taking precautions. He says Iran's "missile capabilities" (a delightfully ambiguous word) were ramped up by 5 or 6 times. The most sensible way to interpret "capabilities" is probably "production". It's not clear whether this means production has been increased to the Western estimate of 300 per month, or if it's now substantially higher than that, but regardless, it's clear that Iran is following Russia's example, implementing a massive military-industrial campaign which dramatically outproduces the West.
• He also stated that Iran, as a precaution, already removed its most important nuclear program materials to safe locations, so what Israel is currently striking is achieving very little. There are flashy images of precise missile strikes by Israel, but these could very much be striking empty facilities. And even the West admits limited effectiveness overall despite the precision; e.g. at Natanz there's only damage to electrical components, which could be replaced in mere months.
• Trump delaying might point to a growing doubt that they could even destroy Fordow, but Simplicius admits that his words are hard to interpret given that he similarly lied about extending negotiations just before Israel struck.
• Simplicius regards Israel to be on what is essentially a genocidal ponzi scheme - you start a conflict, it goes badly, and so to distract from it you start a new conflict, which goes badly, and to distract from that you start a new conflict, which goes badly, and so on. This strange strategy matches the rhetoric of some Zionists which apparently want to go for Qatar, Pakistan, and/or Turkey "after Iran".
• This strategy is now causing very major economic damage to Israel. Some shipping companies, like Maersk, are refusing to go to Haifa, Israel's only operational deepwater/hub port (as Ashdod is too close to Gaza and Eliat under Red Sea blockade via Yemen). The airports are under lockdown, and Israelis are being forced to remain in the country.
• Notable Israeli strikes on Iran have similarly declined, particularly as Iran is ruthlessly hunting Mossad operatives in a dragnet across the nation and is striking Israeli intelligence sites within Israel itself. The shock phase appears like it may be over, and we may now be in the attritional phase. Only US intervention might save Israel, but given Iran's options to counter the US both militarily and economically, Trump is right to hesitate if he isn't merely bluffing.

creating a new Chernobyl on the coast of the Persian Gulf where the radioactivity cloud could conceivably reach a few gulf monarchies whose oil output supports the world economy would be madness

forget Iran closing off the Strait of Hormuz, if the wind is blowing in the "right" direction, bombing Beshehr might take out a chunk of the world's oil output for years if not decades

I believe they mean C4I, not C41?

Harris might have even carried out strikes at the same time that Israel did, to show how they're "joint partners against Iranian authoritarianism and terror" or whatever word salad the finest in the Democratic Party can produce

And who knows if that would have had a different ultimate result but it would be unquestionably worse than Israel alone FAing and now FOing while Trump sits back and says "Two weeks, folks! Mr Khamenei, very bad guy, we want him to surrender! He doesn't want to, but he will! Fordow! Our beautiful bombers, people are saying they're the biggest and best bombers the world has ever seen, just yesterday a handsome general walked up to me and said it! Very powerful! But I'm a nice guy, I'll give them two weeks!"

oh, and whomst amongst us hasn't been in that exact situation?

An Iranian woman saying:

"We're very happy. We hope your hands don't ache, strike them more, drive them crazy! I really cried a lot. God, protect Khamenei for us. Really, I sacrifice myself for the Leader. Death to Israel!"

this is honestly awesome. liberals will talk about how it's desecration but no other nation on earth deserves this kind of desecration more than the United States

Sir President Trump sir, please install a McDonalds directly into the White House

Egypt under Sisi is being neutral/somewhat friendly to Israel, while under extreme pressure both economically and socially because of the large swathes of people inside Egypt that want to oppose Israel. Western surveillance technology is likely critical to them keeping the lid on things. I suspect that there are covert operations by smugglers/resistance groups inside Egypt working to keep Hamas supplied via cross-border tunnels but they can do nothing of scale to help Gaza's population.

Jordan is basically an even more cowardly version of Egypt, with a large Palestinian population that has to be keep repressed; maybe some covert operations by smugglers/resistance groups working on keeping West Bank fighters supplied but again, nothing of scale.

Syria under Jolani is very Israel-friendly, offering up all their military equipment to be destroyed. The Syrian coast is a different story but if they're doing anything, they're probably formulating a resistance to Jolani rather than doing anything to oppose Israel. I think the situation is not stable at all but Assad showed how you can keep plates spinning for a decade even under the godawful situation that Syria is in, so I wouldn't count on anything changing for the foreseeable future, and definitely not while Israel exists. It's been pretty darkly funny how the Kurds have just vanished after Assad was toppled. Very "my work here is done" of them. Maybe some of them were serious about wanting Kurdistan but in retrospect it was functionally just another vector destabilizing the region.

Lebanon is basically one nation state with two governments; southern Lebanon sees Hezbollah as basically legitimate while the north is increasingly under the dictates of a comprador government upheld by Western agents exerting social and economic pressure. The comprador government is trying to disarm Hezbollah with the aid of Israel to varying levels of success. Hezbollah is somewhat acquiescing to this disarmament so as to avoid further mass death in Lebanon, but they're also clearly trying to get the comprador government to join with them to take the fight to Israel again, which the compradors obviously do not wish to do. My tentative prediction is that the comprador government will eventually say that Israel can have everything south of the Litani (maybe not as literal annexation but a sort of "a permanent peace-keeping anti-terrorist operation with a joint mandate supervised by the Lebanese government and blah blah blah" thing that turns out to be functionally equivalent to an Israeli annexation), and this will be unacceptable to Hezbollah, and the organization is basically transported back in time 20/30 years to solely being an internal resistance movement to Israeli occupation (both military and via compradors) albeit with extensive underground structures and missile stockpiles with which to fight. The reduction (but probably not total prevention) of weapon smuggling to them via Syria will also prompt this material shift in how aggressive they can be; guns and drones are easier to smuggle than missiles.

I'm not very familiar with what's going on with Iraq but they don't have meaningful sovereignty over their own country at this point. They would sure love it if Israel and the US stopped flying over their territory to strike Iran, but can't do anything. On the flip side, Iran can also smuggle and fire things over Iraq and arm groups there.

Saudi Arabia and the rest of the gulf monarchies are still unable and/or unwilling to exert enough authority to stop the US from using them as barriers against Iranian strikes, and one imagines them as ostriches with their heads in the sand, shitting themselves, with refineries just waiting to receive Iranian or even Yemeni drones.

Yemen's geopolitical situation has remained remarkably stable despite hundreds of US and Israeli bombings, showing how Ansarallah has created durable social, economy, and military structures to resist imperialist aggression. They aren't capable of much, but the right missile in the right place can still do a lot of damage, and they seem to be pretty good at making missiles.

Turkey's government has been busy feasting on the entrails of Syria. There's a degree of enmity with Israel on this point, but it's clear that they're still friendly to eachother despite the kayfabe.

Armenia's government is probably tasking their greatest political scientists to find the worst possible move they could possibly make during the coming crisis and I'm excited to see what developments they'll find. Maybe we'll see them fire missiles at themselves or something.

Azerbaijan is probably hosting some Israeli drone strikes onto Iran but on the whole I don't think they're a significant player in this thing right now.

With the Central Asian countries that most people don't know exists (your Uzbekistans and so on), I have no idea what they're doing but they're probably just hoping they don't have to get involved.

Pakistan is in an interesting situation in regards to Iran, here's a comment on that that might be interesting.

Afghanistan seems to be keeping things together now that China and Russia are helping them out a little more. I think there have been rumblings that the US wants to get involved there again, but I imagine that's not the main focus right now. It's certainly not the direction I would choose to attack Iran from given the terrain.

An Israeli military spokesperson said Israel had struck the site, but an Israeli military official later called this statement "a mistake" and said he could neither confirm nor deny that the Bushehr site on the cost of the Gulf had been hit.

I love this as it's the classic Zionist lie, where you're just like "We successfully destroyed and eliminated a key facility in Gaza/Lebanon/Syria/whatever, fatally crippling our enemy" and then it's revealed it was a hospital or a clinic or refugee camp and they realize the optics of it and then they either go "Actually, we didn't do that, we are launching an internal investigation about who said this was the case" or if it was indeed visibly damaged they go "Okay, this just in, our strike failed but an enemy missile coincidentally misfired and crashed into the building with an explosive intensity beyond that which Hamas or Hezbollah could even create and perfectly matches previous Israeli bombs"

though in Gaza they obviously stopped even trying to justify striking sites that are very clearly not military in any way

This is gonna be a VERY highly propagandized war. Old newsheads will remember during the 2022 and 2023 days of the Ukraine War (when they had even a vague chance of victory) how we talked about the "real war" vs the "propaganda war". This is gonna be that situation on steroids.

Israel HAS to sell an image of impending victory to their settlers and their backers in the imperial core, because if these settlers are getting confined to bunkers and losing sleep and the power keeps going out and there's not enough fuel and not even able to escape the country AND the war isn't visibly going well for Israel at all? The Zionist project will only unravel quicker.

propaganda will try to appear as objective and realist as possible so as to worm its way past your instant dismissal of it as jingostic genocidal nonsense and will instead present itself as "well, this is simply the facts of the situation, Israel reported a successful strike on [location] with [weapon], here's the video/image." a day or two after this conflict between Iran and Israel began, I started treating no new information as necessarily true (good or bad) unless it's been a little while for the information to come under scrutiny and survive it; that might be a declaration by Iran that they're striking something important and then the declaration turns out to have been invented, or some announcement that Israel has destroyed something in Iran and it turns out they didn't, or only lightly damaged it.

I've only been getting more optimistic about Iran actually; about a month ago I thought conventionally, Iran vs Israel was a fairly even match, but now it feels like taking into account the failure of the Israeli initial strikes and how they've had to cover these failures with Ukraine-esque propaganda campaigns (they're re-using a lot of the same footage from different angles and saying that they're bombing with jets when evidence suggests drones/missiles instead, etc), combined with the myriad failures of the actual use of American weaponry on various battlefields over the last couple decades, not least lately in Yemen, Iran could very well conceivably beat Israel+US

The West is very bad at wars of attrition, so basically if Iran survives the initial phase (we'll only know the duration when it's actually happening) then they're in the clear

An Indian revolution might be in the cards in the coming decades. But until that point, I think India and Turkey are in a similar boat as countries that are kinda on the edge of the Official Westerners Club but they still hold potential membership in that club to be precious rather than limiting, which Russia luckily came to its sense on.

Meanwhile everybody in the imperial core will never really accept them because of a mixture of racism and because they're just independent enough to occasionally do things that the West dislikes (e.g., having relatively a positive relationship with Russia). To be a true friend of the US, you have to be willing to sacrifice yourself fully. Cut yourself off from your energy sources, create a prolonged economic national depression, give the US hundreds of billions while destroying your own industries, help them commit genocides on a moment's notice... Turkey and India will do some of those things but not all of them, and that simply isn't sufficient for America.