My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.
preamble
It’s once again been a relatively slow week, with “only” quite a few oil tankers being struck in the US’s attempt at an oil corridor in Hormuz. I’ve seen several analysts speculate on just how leaky Hormuz might be despite Iran’s attacks, and if it is leaky, then why and to what extent. Now that we’re firmly in August, we have noticeably passed the predicted July ETAs on the physical oil cliff (the paper oil price manipulations notwithstanding), and so analysts are trying to find explanations for the current situation, in which various factors are being considered, of which I’ll list a few I’ve seen personally.
First is, as I said, a potentially leaky Hormuz, because it’s been revealed that in lieu of official corporate insurance, the US is directly paying captains massive sums of money if they’re brave enough to try and run the strait under US air cover - hence why Iran keeps hitting tankers practically daily without them ever seeming to get the message. Obviously, this covert operation by itself would not be enough to even approach pre-war transit levels, and so there must be other factors going on. Second is Red Sea oil redirections predominantly by Saudi Arabia; if this was a big factor, it’s something Ansarallah is now actively combatting with their blockade of the Bab el-Mandab and semi-regular strikes on their pipeline infrastructure. Third is that perhaps world oil reserves are somewhat larger than first considered, especially given China deciding to go on a bit of an oil diet over the last six months, and especially especially if countries really start pumping from one-shot emergency supplies; e.g. there’s been much discussion by Naked Capitalism about just how much the US could extract from the rapidly dwindling SPR if it no longer cared about the irreversible damage to the storage caverns caused by pumping out as much as physically possible. Fourth and finally, perhaps the data on stockpiles was just bad in such as way that they were being consistently underestimated by e.g. 10% or so. Ultimately, regardless of the many complicated factors involved here, the antsy and indecisive behaviour of the US, as well as some anxiety about the midterms, betrays any attempts at American confidence (e.g. by Bessent) about this becoming a stable situation for even the medium term.
We’ve also seen some of the fruits of the serious discussions between Iran and Oman over how exactly Hormuz is going to be governed, with one major and intriguing proposal being that Iran could have total control over what vessels enter (i.e. tolling when entering), and Oman has partial control over what vessels leave, with Iran having a veto there too (i.e. no tolling when exiting, but de jure Iranian military control). Iran has come out and said that regardless of what they agree to with Oman, the US will have to make major concessions - at least on the order of the MoU concessions and perhaps even beyond them - for Hormuz shipping to restart. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkiye have signed some kind of military alliance or agreement of some kind; I’m waiting for some big expert analyses on the many implications before I give any takes here, but it’s already been dealt a rather large embarrassment by Ansarallah seeming to not really a give a shit, continuing strikes on both Saudi pipeline infrastructure and also Saudi-backed mercenaries.
And finally, over in Latin America, the Southern Spear Joint Task Force has given way to a new version which looks likely to increase inland strikes, which is a major escalation from the strikes targeting mainly fishing boats, which were presumably done to a) cause socioeconomic fractures in certain countries (largely Venezuela), and b) further the kayfabe that the US is trying to stop drugs entering the US while obviously covertly further amplifying it through friendly comprador countries. While Latin America struggles to find its way forward out of American regional hegemony due to the rather mixed results of both electoralism and warfare (guerrilla and otherwise), what greatly interests me will be how the region’s domestic capitalists respond to the attempts by the US to wean them off from China’s growing economic sphere. I’ve wondered previously about whether a potential way out of imperium, in lieu of the ability of the region’s working class to take (and, more critically, hold on to) power, will be China, intentionally or not, causing major fractures between the US capitalists seeking a monopoly to loot the continent as much as possible with the absolute minimum domestic development possible to maintain profits, and domestic capitalists who want to trade with an ever-growing China and internally develop their countries for their own self-benefit.
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.
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.
Btw, the “Lindsey Graham Bill” that was already passed by the Senate and gives Trump a lot of power to unilaterally impose sanctions on other countries also seems to extend Iran sanctions through 2031. So the SoH can’t open before 2031.
Hot take: US wasn’t going to deal anyway. Trump might care about the optics of cheap gas but Congress is ride or die with the zionist entity.
They don’t care about high gas prices (especially after the midterms) and restricted supplies mean record profits for western oil companies in the meantime as well as more western control and blackmail of countries into deeper subservience to the US over the remaining global supplies which are mostly concentrated in US/NATO or vassalized countries (Venezuela) hands or through neo-colonialist control using western corporations. (This is necessary for building the world bloc to challenge, isolate, and destroy China in the new cold war)
long rambling
The Gulf states will build pipelines and alternative export terminals to bypass the strait if needed. Zionists were never going to withdraw from Lebanon anyway short of Iran bombing most of their country into ruins (something Iran would never dare get close to doing because the zionists would themselves nuke Iran far before that, which is another reason why not having nukes when faced off against a deranged, genocidal, fascist settler colony backed by the entire west and with a whole religion in its pocket has its drawbacks). US sat through the OPEC embargo rather than dropping support for the zionist entity in the 70s and cars were a lot less efficient then, there was no work from home via internet, and US production capacity and financial advantage to its corporations and bourgeoisie was much much less than now. Zionist entity’s importance has also only grown as has the amount of blackmail they have on the US (evidence of a cyber “samson” option enabled by zionist intelligence operative run tech companies penetrating western tech ecosystems to the deepest levels with back-doors so they can just turn off the whole economy if US defiance is too great or their existence in peril).
If anything it will also prompt closer ties to the zionist entity which are desired in the US and the entity via exploitation and development of Palestine’s oil field in the sea there. They may also have the idea that they can keep Ukraine in the fight for years, a decade more (even as a rump state) sending drones deep into Russia to blow up pipelines to China and thus with other sources cut off or under US control already slit China’s throat by cutting off their last source of oil, plunging their manufacturing economy (not a car thing, petro-chemicals thing) into free-fall and forcing them to bend the knee in subservience (ala Plaza Accords) or just isolating them and turning the screws to attempt to get them to crack by immiserating the people of China to turn them against the government
There’s also the possibility of deep sadism of the US intentionally accelerating oil and gas development everywhere in order to accelerate climate change because it stands to be a prize-fighter gut-punching the global south, China, European rivals, and working people everywhere who are increasingly seen by some elements as a dangerous revolutionary risk and liability with what they believe is a roboticized, automated, AI enabled future with minimal human workers and guaranteed loyalty. Meanwhile US compared to just about any place on earth that isn’t Russia stands to weather climate change really well with livable temperatures through most of it and farmland that will mostly remain productive or viable.
Iran hasn’t lost but I’m not sure it can win either because it can’t deliver a knock-out blow its opponent cares about. It may be the only deal it can get is a weak compromise from the US that returns to close to the pre-war status quo with maybe fewer bases nearby but sanctions still gnawing at them. So if Iran wants a deal they realistically will have to accept zionist continued invasion and occupation of Lebanon (and the weakening of their only remaining major regional ally in Hezbollah and expansion of the greater pis-rael project), continued sanctions, no restitution from the US, limited and unofficial facts-on-the-ground subject-to-change base closures in the region instead of real withdrawals (and probably a bunch of work building bunkers and hardened structures in those within 6 months of any such deal), and perhaps the US will let them charge some minor toll fee on inbound vessels which are mostly Chinese cargo which Iran will have to exempt anyway and maybe empty tankers for a while which will be valued at some tiny rate compared to a filled tanker.
If Iran refuses this well get ready for more expensive everything sometime after the mid-terms as costs to move food to stores and from fields to factories go up with increased fuel costs, same with any and all consumer goods including imports from China. Overall devastation for the consumer market but maybe that’s the plan anyway? Since most spending now comes from the top 10-20% of earners it doesn’t matter as much if the proles cannot afford things and by making things expensive, destroying the mass production market you weaken and hurt China and push forward decoupling as people are no longer buying goods from them anyway (industrial supply chain entanglement is a bigger problem but suppose they believe they can fix that anyway and do friend-shoring).
Or maybe (and I’d like this to be the case) Trump has no plan, US is run by utter fools with no plans and somehow the economic pain of oil price shocks will force a compromise that’s humiliating to the US.
I think there’s too many headwinds against it and I think Congress is a big impediment because you’ll never convince enough of them to back down until hours before the US military leading a mob arrives at the capital to carry out a revolution. Really the chain to pull here is the zionist one as they can probably scream and plead and squeal loud enough to get the zionist congress-people to actually pass humiliating bills in the name of standing with the entity. But I’m not sure what Iran can do there to really hurt them as US dollar infusions prop them up, they’re protected from international law, and they’re deranged genocidal fascist demons with nukes. So I just don’t see any easy way out. It would be one thing if Trump were a dictator and could just bend the knee all on his own for his own sense of preserving the nation and industry and he hadn’t the attention span to get veiled zionist threats towards him. But he’s not.
I would disagree with the idea of this being premeditated from the imperial core, but nonetheless a dying empire has a habit of making itself linger like a dog fart at a dinner party
Hmm, well Graham really wanted to get Iran “done”. If only he were still around to see what he’s getting done