It does make the “Great Satan” moniker seem more appropriate, doesn’t it. Or at least, that was about the thought I had when I read it.

Interesting context. I’m very curious now what the exact translation is. Machine translation that I get says:

The president recently gathered the government. I have not seen such a sad and so alarming meeting for a long time. He had to hear from you, from representatives of the party of power, why we are again falling into the financial and industrial crisis. But I never heard a clear answer to this question. And we have repeatedly warned you: with this course, the economy will inevitably fail. The first quarter is marked by an obvious fall. And no serious specialist today does not believe that at least symbolic growth will be achieved at least at the end of the year. Everyone states stagflation and recession. If you do not urgently take the necessary financial and economic measures, if you do not adjust the course in principle, then in the autumn we can expect what happened in February 1917.

We have no right to repeat it! Therefore, it is necessary to take into account historical experience and make long-term urgent decisions.

Like this part in particular, I wonder what it’s like in Russian, in context:

We have no right to repeat it!

Because in English, that could have multiple meanings. It could mean things like: “it is illegal to repeat it”, “it is a failing on our part to repeat it”/“it is wrong of us to allow ourselves to reach a point where we would have to repeat it”, “it is wrong of us to repeat it”. The last one would be the most revolution-adverse as a matter of fundamentally opposing revolution even if necessary, but is that actually the meaning?

I tried prompting an LLM about it, which I’m aware is not to be taken at face value, but as perhaps a corroborative piece of information. Noting that I did not state my view on it, only asked for its interpretation of that line in the context of the previous paragraph, and that I first asked it to translate that part of the speech, which it did with similar results to Google Translate. The interpretation from it:

the best interpretation is that the speaker is making an urgent, almost desperate appeal to the conscience of the decision-makers. They are arguing that the stakes are so high, and the historical lesson so clear, that failing to act decisively would be a grave and inexcusable dereliction of duty, a moral crime against the nation they are meant to serve. It’s a powerful attempt to shame or compel the authorities into action by framing their choice in stark, historical, and ethical terms.

This more or less syncs up with how I’m inclined to take it in context. That he’s not trying to say “revolution bad”, but rather, “it would be shameful if the Russian people have to repeat it because you do such a poor job of ruling.”

If anyone who is bilingual in Russian and English can weigh in though, that would be nice.

Yeah, I think what you’re touching on is basically the difference between expertise and loyalty. A prole revolution does need people who are loyal to the cause in the highest positions of power, but if you base power only on loyalty, you will have a bunch of people who are very loyal about not knowing what to do. You need a healthy intersection of loyalty and expertise, and the further out someone gets from the levers of power, the less strict you can be about loyalty, as long as they’re providing expertise. But no matter how close someone is to power, if you only prioritize loyalty, you get nothing more than sycophants.

Pure loyalty focus is the stuff of cults; their main thing is fealty to the leader. “Will you do this thing I order you to do, no matter how ridiculous or horrible it is?” That’s pure loyalty focus.

Sorry, I meant the end goal of the US blockade, not the end goal of the analysis, I should have clarified that. But thank you for the further context on this, that does indeed sound significant and I will look at it more closely tomorrow. 🙏

I guess my question is, supposing this analysis is on point, what would be the end goal? Provoke China into a war? It’s not like China is gonna sit there passively forever and Iran is far from passive themselves. And to my understanding, China’s dependency on energy imports is a lot less than some of the US’s own allies, with a lot more resiliency in things like solar and so on. Also, IIRC, when the US tried to cripple China on computer chip stuff, China adapted and used what it had on hand more efficiently. It’s hard to imagine them being able to do much about China’s trajectory at this point without bombing it and China is more than capable militarily to fend them off if it comes to that. So is it simply desperation or is there something I’m not seeing here?

Critical support to monkeys.

I did some searching. It’s (probably) this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEoIUoH6kZY

But I did not compare against facebook. OP may be able to confirm.

lmaooo

It reeks of desperation from the imperial admin to feel like they have some level of control over the situation. It strikes me that they really are organizationally unequipped to take an overt geopolitical L at this point; I think the pathetic showing of negotiation for peace on their part shows that. They are so used to everyone folding to them. They are used to diplomacy being another tool to solidify people folding to them, in polite meeting rooms. They refuse to grapple with the idea of losing any power.

They might as well have written a note that said:

Our Demands: “Give us your land.”

Putrid, entitled fuckers.

Yeah, I’m not very confident on that point. Maybe it’s also a matter of organization and communicating expectations clearly to the Iranian people? If we contrast to somewhere like the US, the US starts all these wars, but doesn’t really have to deal with attacks on its soil and appears to have most of its operations these days run on a clandestine level. So it’s like it operates almost independently of the rest of the nation. Whereas a place like Iran, it is being attacked on its soil and it is doubtful it has the same level of clandestine operation, or interest in such. By communicating clearly, it is perhaps both an external message and an internal message: “We are not going to drag you [the people of Iran] into a conflict with muddy lines for confusing purposes.” After all, there are “regime change” efforts from the west in countries like that, so making sure the people are trusting the institutions of power is important.

What do you think of this angle to it?

P.S. I should really look into reading that as well. I keep seeing people here talk about it as a resource.

For our new BBC podcast, Top Comment, we spoke to a representative of Explosive Media, one of the key accounts generating these clips. He wanted us to refer to him as Mr Explosive.

He’s a savvy social media operator who initially denies working for the Iranian government. In previous interviews the outlet has said it is “totally independent”. But upon further questioning, Mr Explosive admits the regime is a “customer” - something he’s never before confirmed publicly.

🤣 I have to laugh at how hard western media tries to make it sound like everything done in a country they don’t like is secretly tied to its “regime” of a government, as if this somehow means the action is inherently bad just cause the west said the country’s government is bad. It’s such a silly fucking “gotcha”. “Oh, you claim you are independent? But you made something for the government! Not so independent now, are you??? Gottem.” Meanwhile, the west is chock full of private entities that make/do stuff for the government, so it’s laughable they want to act like that’s a bad thing when another country does it, but not when it’s them.

If my understanding of the timing of it is right, they were in the middle of the negotiations still when it happened. So since part of the reason to do the negotiations at all seems to have been to show openness toward negotiating for peace, it would look bad if they suddenly broke it; but also, taking an attack in a pacifist manner would not help them either. So warning first gives the enemy the chance to back off, same with agreeing to attempted negotiations, but if they hadn’t backed off, Iran could have shown after that they warned first and only attacked when absolutely necessary to defend themselves.

This is how both Iran and Russia seem to behave these days in dealing with provocation and aggression. State the lines very clearly, give ample chance to back off, state what the response will be very clearly, and then pull no punches if the lines are crossed. In this way, it is harder to accuse them of being deceptive or random in their actions and it cannot be said that it is unclear what their boundaries are. The empire will still try to warp and distort what they do, but those nations who are more “on the sidelines” and are looking to the direction of the geopolitical world as a whole will be able to see the contrast between them and the deceptive aggression of the empire.

That is at least what I surmise is supposed to be some of the motive behind it. I could be wrong.

Strange. Personally, I feel pretty hopeful. It appears to me like the battle lines are being drawn more clearly, solidarity is strengthening for the Axis of Resistance, and the world is seeing that the empire can bleed like anyone else.

Forgive me if I sound more poetic than materialist, but I feel compelled to say: The old world is dying. Something new is taking shape. Now is the time of beginnings, in every space carved out by the resistance, every tendril of empire in retreat. We must not let our weariness cling to the gaunt pallor of imperial inevitability and instead look to the cracks where light is filtering in to claw at them, broaden them, until they burst and the whole rapacious palace built on bones and soil soaked in blood comes crashing down.

Awesome, love to hear it. Sounds like they are solidifying their role as the center of the resistance in the region, around which others can rally.

That’s good to hear, thanks. Hoping for the best for the region. 🙏

The whiplash of this after Trump’s vaguetweeting threats. Hard to believe the Zionist entity will actually hold to a ceasefire, with how often it violates ceasefires with other places in the region.

Also wondering what this means in practice:

No further aggression (including against Iranian allies)

Like who counts as an official ally of Iran in this plan. Because places like Lebanon and Palestine really need the help, not the Zionist entity shifting its aggression mainly toward them again.

I don’t think it’s that simple to achieve though. Look at how much Yemen has done with its limited resources. Iran could inflict pain via the Strait even with more limited resources. Iran could make it hell to try to occupy due to terrain. Nukes are scary, but they are more barbaric than they are a strategic military resource. Most of their strategic power comes from MAD and deterrence. Less from actual use.

I agree with the spirit of it. I’m doubtful of anyone’s commitment to letting nukes loose though (but I fully believe there are warhawks who consider it - IIRC, the “Cuban Missile Crisis” was one such event). As Trump is a mask off version of the status quo, it makes sense he may express openly, or sound like he’s expressing, consideration of nukes.

But no matter how deranged the empire gets, setting off nukes in this geopolitical landscape is unprecedented territory. This isn’t the US bombing Japan at the end of WWII where the US was the only one who had nukes. If the US uses nukes now, anti-imperialist nuclear powers would be pressured to retaliate (namely: Russia, China). Otherwise, the new precedent is that you can nuke whatever country you want, as long as they can’t nuke back. And that sort of precedent in the hands of a declining empire lashing out would mean it starts viewing its nukes as a valid option for blowing up entire peoples.

Nukes in Iran would also not crush Iran or its resistance. It would senselessly mass murder for no real gain. Remaining Iranians would have all the more vicious hatred for the US and double-down on efforts to block the Strait and break the empire economically. Trump would cement himself as an international pariah (his ego clearly doesn’t want that).

So although I fully believe those conversations get had because the empire is brutal as hell, it would not be something it can really come back from. I think the greater likelihood is that this is spectacle and it’s Trump trying to intimidate, while they focus on a more kidnapping-of-Maduro style of operation.

Either way, I hope the anti-imperialist nuclear powers are having those conversations about what they would do if the US did try to nuke Iran.

It’s shit like that what makes me hate when people try to humanize the oligarchy. “Anyone with that much wealth would act that way.”

That’s not what the humanizing argument is. It’s that 1) human beings are in fact capable of being that fucked up, which leads to 2) we can do something about it in how we design systems going forward, i.e. it’s not an inevitability that the most monstrous of human beings exist in the first place.

If we instead insist 1) the worst of us aren’t human, that leads 2) there are literal monsters among us whose origin is beyond our comprehension and control, and all we can do is try to catch them before they do damage and kill them before they gain any power.

In practice, the first mindset is typically associated with liberation forces and what they practice and believe. The second mindset is typically associated with class and caste, racism and things like that. Note that this does not mean the liberation forces are pacifist in the face of already existing monstrous human beings, nor does this mean they feel a need to mourn the death of a violent oppressor. It just means that they do not treat the existence of the worst people as an inevitable part of life.

So, it’s not that “anyone with that much wealth would act that way.” It’s that a system that produces an oligarchy also produces and elevates sociopathic behavior. It’s not a flip of a switch that means everyone over a certain amount of wealth instantly starts acting like the top worst kind of human being. It’s more of a gradual process and we’re not going to tend to hear as much about the ones with wealth whose character is a “lesser evil”, whose ties to industry are exploitative but whose personal MO remains somewhat conscientious. After all, rare as they may be, class traitors do exist. Generalities about what a system produces do not prevent exceptions to the rule.