Bulletins and News Discussion from December 2nd to December 8th, 2024 - May A Hundred Hazel Flowers Bloom - COTW: Russia

Image is of one of the six salvos of the Oreshnik missile striking Ukraine.

The Oreshnik is an intermediate-range ballistic missile that appears to split into six groups of six submunitions as it strikes its target, giving it the appearance of a hazel flower. It can travel at ten times the speed of sound, and cannot be intercepted by any known Western air defense system, and thus Russia can strike and conventionally destroy any target anywhere in Europe within 20 minutes. Two weeks ago, Russia used the Oreshnik to strike the Yuzhmash factory in Ukraine, particularly its underground facilities, in which ballistic missiles are produced.

Despite the destruction caused by the missile, and its demonstration of Russian missile supremacy over the imperial core, various warmongering Western countries have advocated for further reprisals against Russia, with Ukraine authorized by the US to continue strikes. Additionally, the recent upsurge of the fighting in Syria is no doubt connected to trying to stretch Russia thin, as well as attempting to isolate Hezbollah and Palestine from Iran; how successful this will have ended up being will depend on the outcome of the Russia and Syrian counteroffensive. Looking at recent military history, it will take many months for the Russians and Syrians to retake a city that was lost in about 48 hours.

Even in the worst case scenario for Hezbollah, it's notable that Ansarallah has had major success despite being physically cut off from the rest of the Resistance and under a blockade, and it has defeated the US Navy in its attempts to open up the strait. Israel has confirmed now that their army cannot even make significant territorial gains versus a post-Nasrallah, post-pager terrorist attack Hezbollah holding back its missile strike capabilities. In 2006, it also could not defeat a much less well-armed Hezbollah and was forced to retreat from Lebanon.

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2.2K comments

I don't feel anything about the collapse of the SAA in Hama and possibly further. It's a rotting government, even a particularly vulnerable minority like the Ismaili Shias in Salamiyah are seeing the writing on the wall and handed over their town to HTS today. People in the left anti-imperialist camp are missing too much context in their steadfast defence of Assad and the government. Yeah most minorities would rather live under Assad, that's obvious, but it's frankly a horrible government and most people are just indifferent at this point. I expected horrors to be committed when HTS took Aleppo, but they are behaving better than the SAA and NDF thugs so far honestly. It's very hard to be motivated to fight for the rotting Baath government, what does a vision of the future even look like at this point? Back to 2010, where you get arrested if you get caught praying when you have lunch break? It's psychologically over for the Baath government, their last 15 years have ranged from mediocre to disastrous in people's minds, and the natural reaction is that people either openly welcome HTS or become indifferent towards HTS.
- Syria is essential geographically and politically for a stronger axis of resistance. It is good for the imperialists if the government falls (which is why they are behind all of this) and bad for Iran, Hezbollah, and anyone that works with them. Breaking up and preventing solidarity between states and organizations is the entire point of the US supporting Israel. Isolated states and organizations are much less powerful than those that can work together.
  Given who would be toppling the government, it would be replaced by US stooges and people in the orbit of Daesh. All kinds of horrors would be possible within Syria under such a regime and you could add Syria to the group of states that will allow Israeli and US jets and missiles through but will try to shoot down those of Iran. You could also write off the various supply lines to Hezbollah et al that go through Syria and add a new front for any attacks on Lebanon, being fully surrounded by Israel and Syria.
  
  I don't disagree with all that, but this literally means nothing anymore to a random Sunni Arab villager in rural Aleppo who gets 8 hours of electricity on a good day, 25$ in pension and whose sons are either dead or refugees in Belgium. We keep focusing on these bigger pictures, which is theoretically the smart thing to do, but people are tired comrade. The misery of the Baath government has made everyone indifferent or outright hostile. And what Axis is there left? Iran since Soleimani's death is the most useless ally you can have. Nasrallah and by extension Hezbollah are dead, it's over. Hamas are dead. There is no Axis, there is no united Pan-Shia anti-imperialist front, there's nothing left anymore. That's the bitter truth. Our finest young men and our greatest leaders in Palestine and Lebanon are gone. The Axis became a hierarchy where Iran allowed Haniyeh and Hamas to be eaten, then allowed Nasrallah and Hezbollah to be eaten, and now they will allow Assad and Syria to be eaten. All that so that they keep storing dollars in Dubai banks without risking anything. The Axis was solidified the day Al Muhandis and Soleimani were in the same trenches in Aleppo and Mosul, and it died the day Trump bombed their car.
  
  There is truth to the psychology you describe and its material basis. But if the Syrian government falls it will get worse. See how life is in those areas controlled by Daesh. 8 hours of power? How about half of one's family killed and no power at all for most unless they follow the exact dictates of the local reps. These are not speculative things or baseless fearmongering, it has been a daily reality for those in the parts of Syria and Iraq occupied by them.
  Think of those who became so frustrated with the USSR that they began dismissing it. Yes, it had a great series of mistakes, and this contributed to their downfall, but (1) the primary enemy is the imperialists, (2) the imperialists are the main opponents of those we may want to dismiss, and (3) after the USSR fell, the world got worse and millions died during capitalist restoration anf maximum pressure by imperialists on all of thr countries that depended on that trade bloc.
  Nearly every criticism of our "allies" can be correct and we will have less power and more death and a stronger imperialist bloc if they fall.
  So to br clear I do not think criticizing the Syrian government is wrong, but it is incorrect to think of its hypothetical fall to US-backed forces as anything other than a disaster.
  
  he knows it will get worse comrade, thats what hes saying. People are just too tired of war to care anymore.
  
  They're saying there is no axis at all, arguing there's nothing to lose from this.
  
  Iran Contra 2 is coming, we need to wait a decade to see what Iran gets from this. It can be as simple as realizing they were becoming a Russian protectorate and balking at the idea due to great game issues. (Russia wanted Iran just as much as Britain) The saddest thing here is that this all came apart partly because of support for hamas, which last time I checked is more aligned with the syrian rebels than the palestinian groups harbored by Assad.
  The real issue here is that China realpolitiked itself into supporting equally shit regimes in Pakistan and Myanmar. When those regimes fall, the belt and road initiative is going to have a major setback. Shia sectarianism was a mistake.
- I don't believe Assad will fall and he'll probably get his territory back eventually - as in every single conflict nowadays, if it takes a day to lose a town to the imperialists then it'll take a year to re-take it. HTS will likely reach a point where their offensive becomes untenable to continue even with US and Israeli backing, with Russia bombing supply routes and headquarters; they don't strike me as a group as literally or figuratively embedded as Hamas is in Gaza or Hezbollah is in Lebanon.
  What I do hope is that this is the final kick up the ass of the Iranians and even Russians to actually fucking do something meaningful. If there's a single critique I have of the Resistance Axis, it's that they are very slow, especially when they should be fast. The US and Israelis are somehow working at quintuple speed compared to everybody else. They zip from failure to success to failure, but at least they're zipping. Iran's first strike on Israel should have been in the same year of October 7th, and their second strike should have been in like, February. It shouldn't have taken a full year of genocide - 365 goddamn days - for them to realize that they'd maybe have to start seriously hitting Israel directly. Hezbollah was on that shit on October 8th, and Ansarallah, under some of the worst conditions on the planet, virtually the Haiti of the Middle East, was setting up their blockade within a couple months. Maybe if Putin stopped doing will-I-won't-I shit with threats to use nuclear weapons or conventional ones against NATO forces in Ukraine or whatever, and instead did something actually productive and drop a few Oreshniks on HTS sites a month ago (as I presume the Russians of all superpowers with pretty competent intelligence agencies had some idea of what was soon to occur in Syria), then maybe the US would have truly realized that Putin wasn't fucking around anymore.
  We all know that it won't propel the Iranians to do anything which is the most frustrating part, possibly. I'm not accusing them of doing nothing, I'm actually probably Iran's strongest defender in the news megathread, they are a critical part of the Resistance and Palestine might well have fallen without them and their influence being more covert shouldn't mean that they're underappreciated. But, like, the United States, thousands of miles away, has taken more substantial hits for their allies in the past year than Iran has for their's, in the same goddamn region. I think we all have issues with Putin's conduct of the Ukraine War, but at least he had the balls to directly start a war despite all the consequences instead of continuing to meekly supply arms and the odd piece of intel to the Donbass while the Ukrainians kept murdering them.
  I don't think Iran should necessarily start a direct war with Israel or the US, the nukes make that an unbelievably risky move, but the Iranian government is gonna reach a point similar to the Russian government where they realize that it's either take a stand now and possibly win, or stand by and watch as their allies are picked apart and they are left alone against a region full of either US allies or countries that have been bombed and ripped apart internally by "rebel forces". Not necessarily this year or the next, but at some point. The Russians watched NATO militarily march to their borders over the course of a few decades and finally had enough. When will Iran have that same breaking point? Will Assad have to fall? Will Iraq and Yemen? Will Hezbollah? Will every Palestinian have to die or be exiled? If Hamas does eventually fall or become too damaged to stop their activity in Gaza, will Iran be like "Hm, yes, well... we've received the latest dispatch from the Israelis and they seem intent to sign a deal with us to establish a committee on the possibility of eventually discussing the possibility of starting a bipartisan super-committee on the prospects of eventually signing a deal to..." How many Minsks will Tehran need to go through before they realize that the US is actually and truly agreement-incapable?
  And jesus fucking christ, we'll have to go through the same process AGAIN with China and Taiwan. Can't wait for Xi or whoever's in charge by then to agree to pause the Taiwan offensive in exchange for XYZ and then have the US betray the deal by sending in arms to Taiwan and then do that another three times before the Chinese government realizes that no, there CANNOT be any agreement with the United States. Every single group or country - with the exception of like, Ansarallah and Hamas, if only out of necessity - seems to be totally unable of observing the process other countries go through and have to be forced to painstakingly learn that the US will NEVER play fair.
  America might well survive another hundred years SOLELY because every anti-imperialist force will go through a three-decade process where they sign like five Minsk Agreements with their own Israels/Taiwans/Ukraines and it takes an entire generation to internalize that the only language that America understands is overwhelming and terrifying brutality and violence. Meanwhile, every decade, another 50 million people are dead in either wars or climate disasters. The incoming decades might well be characterized by governments moving glacially while crises arrive and compound year-after-year, until they either undergo revolution or break into a dozen warring mini-states.
  
  I don't believe Assad will fall and he'll probably get his territory back eventually
  The vibes I'm getting from Syria are the complete opposite tbh, it feels over this time. There's no energy anymore. The economic situation and the pure repression are just too much to overcome at this point, conscripts and even ideological fighters are too disillusioned to care.
  When it comes to Iran and their ideological project, I don't know what to say. As of today, I'm operating under an analytical framework that says that the Axis of Resistance breathed its final breath in that Israeli strike on Nasrallah's bunker in Harat Hreik on that cursed Friday on the 27th of September. The Axis was fatally wounded four years ago in the drone strike on the Baghdad Airport Highway, but the final deadly strike was on Nasrallah. There's no coherent Axis anymore, Iran has simply proved that it's not a reliable equal partner to Hamas, nor to Hezbollah, nor to Assad now, and they won't be a reliable partner to Ansarallah whenever the Saudis do their own surprise Aleppo-style attack in the future. Soleimani was Putin, he was the one with the balls to launch full scale wars to protect his interests, Khamenei and the libs that took over the Iranian state aren't as decisive. Like you said, inaction is the theme of the future. Biden represents inaction, Khamenei represents inaction, the whole EU represents inaction. There are just three adventurers left in the world, Netanyahu, MBZ and Putin. Sisi will see the Nile dry without doing anything about Sudan and Ethiopia on his borders. The Algerians will see Morocco take the whole Sahara while putting out strong statements. The EU will see their entire industry and economy collapse while they're busy with the charging port standards in the EU. Xi will see 50 American bases in Taiwan while he privatises utilities for efficiency. It's almost hopeless, but imagine how hopeless a Sunni jihadist was last week. Gaza is razed to the ground, Assad and the SDF controlling almost all of Syria, the Saudis doing raves near Mecca, every single Jihadi project buried in the ground. A week later and his entire cause is revived and thriving.
  
  wait so trump icing that general turned out to be important?
  
  I mean there is no evidence syrian army wants to do anything, and “moderate rebels” are doing bread giving and photo ops. I don’t see how it stops and why, they just pack up and leave, before 2020 they were fighting. Iran possibly discussing sending forces would be too late at that point, with those speeds of advance
  And tbh, I have a feeling they don’t have plan b or c, while usa swims in those with think tanks who do the proposals. I mean russia was switching gears for like 6 months, instead of “right, plan b then”
- The atrocities will come later, but people have memed who must go into our generation's no pasaràn. Baathism was always bad, it betrayed Nasser. I just hate that people who saw this coming our all labeled defeatist right until the actual defeat, at which point they are called reactionaries. I also think Iraq is going to have a suspicious timed Sunni uprising right after Iraq and Iran send reinforcements that will inevitably be attacked by Israel. The question is where the Alawites and Damascus urbanites go, Europe is not going to take them (imagine how the fascists will react when Syrian refugees say they dont want to share space with ideological enemeies) and Iran seems like one bad day away from reinstating the Shah. My bet is South America. We should also start mapping where all the isis camps are, the rebels are about to get a bunch of reinforcements. It's either game over or the start of the sunni shia war.
  
  Most of the Syrian Shia/Alawite diaspora probably end up in Lebanon or Iraq. The ones who can afford to will either go to Europe or elsewhere.
  
  Odds are lebanon will fall into civil war and Isis will attack Iraq again first.
  
  Perhaps, but Iraq and Lebanon are the closest Shia-friendly countries that Syrian Shia can get to on foot or by car.
  
  Sunnis live in the west and have rebelled against the shia dominated government twice. This is the perfect time to do so again.
  
  The Sunnis in Iraq are not the Borg. A bunch of Iraqi Sunnis fought with the Iraqi government against ISIS.
  
  I am talking about the awakening that led to isis.
  
  Alawites will carve up some Abkhazia-style Russian protectorate on the coast in the end. Jolani's HTS are more like 2021 Taliban, they aren't interested in ruining their international relationships and they're definitely not committing a genocide of the entire Latakia-Tartous coast. Regular Syrian shias will just go to Iraq though, there will be an exodus very soon. Damascus and Aleppo elites will grow their beards, send their sons and daughters to Dubai and rebrand themselves, tbh I don't care what happens to them. I also don't believe in any Sunni uprising scenario in Iraq as well. The situation in 2014 was charged when it came to sectarianism, and there was already a sunni protest movement against that shithead Nouri Al Maliki that ISIS infiltrated and took over. Sunnis in Iraq are now enjoying their best period since the 80s. Their cities are prospering, the security situation is fantastic and the economy is doing well for them. People overestimate the willingness of random people to fight for any cause, there isn't an appetite for fighting anymore in Iraq, not even the Shias are that excited about Syria anymore. I'm only worried about the Sayyida Zaynab shrine in Damascus, Jihadists would love to demolish it. I hope that the new calmer Jolani makes cooler heads prevail and avoid any unnecessary bloodshed for that.
  
  The difference here is that Israel would bomb the crap out of such a breakaway state. There will be nothing to stop them.

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