Re: [Marxism] Marx on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation

[Ralph Johansen via Marxism]

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Citation to Collected Works is at bottom of message. Unfortunately, MECW 
are not online, this version still under copyright by International 
Publishers or Lawrence and Wishart afaik.


On 3/13/2017 10:24 PM, Thomas wrote:

Where can one find the article quoted?  MEC appear to be out of action.

T


-Original Message-

From: Ralph Johansen via Marxism 
Sent: Mar 14, 2017 12:14 AM
To: Thomas F Barton 
Subject: [Marxism] Marx on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation

I just stumbled on this while looking for something else:

Lincoln is a /sui generis/ figure in the annals of history. He has no
initiative, no idealistic impetus, no cothurnis, no historical
trappings. He gives his most important actions always the most
commonplace form. Other people claim to be "fighting for an idea," even
when it is for them a matter of square feet of land. Lincoln, even when
he is motivated by an idea, talks about "square feet." He sings the
bravura aria of his part hesitatively, reluctantly and unwillingly, as
though apologizing for being compelled by circumstances to "act the
lion." The most redoubtable decrees - which will always remain
remarkable historical documents - flung by him at the enemy will look
like, and are intended to look like, routine summonses sent by a lawyer
to the lawyer of the opposing party, legal chicaneries, involved,
hide-bound /actiones juris/. His latest proclamation, which is drafted
in the same style, the manifesto abolishing slavery, is the most
important document in American history since the establishment of the
Union, tantamount to the tearing up of the old American Constitution.

Nothing is simpler than to show that Lincoln's principal political
actions contain much that is aesthetically repulsive, logically
inadequate, farcical in form and politically contradictory. as is done
by the English Pindar of slaves, /The Times/, /The Saturday Review/
and/tutti quanti/. But Lincoln's place in the history of the United
States and of mankind will, nevertheless, be next to that of Washington!
Nowadays, when the insignificant struts about melodramatically on this
side of the Atlantic, is it of no significance at all that the
significant is clothed in everyday dress in the new world?

Lincoln is not the product of a popular revolution. This plebeian, who
worked his way up from stone-breaker to Senator in Illinois, without
intellectual brilliance, without a particularly outstanding character,
without exceptional importance - an average person of good will, was
placed at the top by the interplay of the forces of universal suffrage
unaware of the great issues at stake. The new world has never achieved a
greater triumph than by this demonstration that, given its political and
social organization, ordinary people of good will can accomplish feats
which only heroes could accomplish in the old world!

Hegel once observed that comedy is in fact superior to tragedy and
humourous reasoning superior to grandiloquent reasoning. Although
Lincoln does not possess the grandiloquence of historical action, as an
average man of the people he has its humour. When does he issue the
proclamation declaring that from January 1, 1863, slavery in the
Confederacy shall be abolished? At the very moment when the Confederacy
as an independent state decided on "peace negotiations" at its Richmond
Congress. At the very moment when the slave-owners of the border states
believed that the invasion of Kentucky by the armies of the South had
made the "peculiar institution" just as safe as was their domination
over their compatriot, President Abraham Lincoln in Washington.

- MECW 19:250






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Re: [Marxism] Marx on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation

[Thomas via Marxism]

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Where can one find the article quoted?  MEC appear to be out of action.

T


-Original Message-
>From: Ralph Johansen via Marxism 
>Sent: Mar 14, 2017 12:14 AM
>To: Thomas F Barton 
>Subject: [Marxism] Marx on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation
>

>I just stumbled on this while looking for something else:
>
>Lincoln is a /sui generis/ figure in the annals of history. He has no 
>initiative, no idealistic impetus, no cothurnis, no historical 
>trappings. He gives his most important actions always the most 
>commonplace form. Other people claim to be "fighting for an idea," even 
>when it is for them a matter of square feet of land. Lincoln, even when 
>he is motivated by an idea, talks about "square feet." He sings the 
>bravura aria of his part hesitatively, reluctantly and unwillingly, as 
>though apologizing for being compelled by circumstances to "act the 
>lion." The most redoubtable decrees - which will always remain 
>remarkable historical documents - flung by him at the enemy will look 
>like, and are intended to look like, routine summonses sent by a lawyer 
>to the lawyer of the opposing party, legal chicaneries, involved, 
>hide-bound /actiones juris/. His latest proclamation, which is drafted 
>in the same style, the manifesto abolishing slavery, is the most 
>important document in American history since the establishment of the 
>Union, tantamount to the tearing up of the old American Constitution.
>
>Nothing is simpler than to show that Lincoln's principal political 
>actions contain much that is aesthetically repulsive, logically 
>inadequate, farcical in form and politically contradictory. as is done 
>by the English Pindar of slaves, /The Times/, /The Saturday Review/ 
>and/tutti quanti/. But Lincoln's place in the history of the United 
>States and of mankind will, nevertheless, be next to that of Washington! 
>Nowadays, when the insignificant struts about melodramatically on this 
>side of the Atlantic, is it of no significance at all that the 
>significant is clothed in everyday dress in the new world?
>
>Lincoln is not the product of a popular revolution. This plebeian, who 
>worked his way up from stone-breaker to Senator in Illinois, without 
>intellectual brilliance, without a particularly outstanding character, 
>without exceptional importance - an average person of good will, was 
>placed at the top by the interplay of the forces of universal suffrage 
>unaware of the great issues at stake. The new world has never achieved a 
>greater triumph than by this demonstration that, given its political and 
>social organization, ordinary people of good will can accomplish feats 
>which only heroes could accomplish in the old world!
>
>Hegel once observed that comedy is in fact superior to tragedy and 
>humourous reasoning superior to grandiloquent reasoning. Although 
>Lincoln does not possess the grandiloquence of historical action, as an 
>average man of the people he has its humour. When does he issue the 
>proclamation declaring that from January 1, 1863, slavery in the 
>Confederacy shall be abolished? At the very moment when the Confederacy 
>as an independent state decided on "peace negotiations" at its Richmond 
>Congress. At the very moment when the slave-owners of the border states 
>believed that the invasion of Kentucky by the armies of the South had 
>made the "peculiar institution" just as safe as was their domination 
>over their compatriot, President Abraham Lincoln in Washington.
>
>- MECW 19:250
>
>
>
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[Marxism] Marx on Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation

[Ralph Johansen via Marxism]

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I just stumbled on this while looking for something else:

Lincoln is a /sui generis/ figure in the annals of history. He has no 
initiative, no idealistic impetus, no cothurnis, no historical 
trappings. He gives his most important actions always the most 
commonplace form. Other people claim to be "fighting for an idea," even 
when it is for them a matter of square feet of land. Lincoln, even when 
he is motivated by an idea, talks about "square feet." He sings the 
bravura aria of his part hesitatively, reluctantly and unwillingly, as 
though apologizing for being compelled by circumstances to "act the 
lion." The most redoubtable decrees - which will always remain 
remarkable historical documents - flung by him at the enemy will look 
like, and are intended to look like, routine summonses sent by a lawyer 
to the lawyer of the opposing party, legal chicaneries, involved, 
hide-bound /actiones juris/. His latest proclamation, which is drafted 
in the same style, the manifesto abolishing slavery, is the most 
important document in American history since the establishment of the 
Union, tantamount to the tearing up of the old American Constitution.


Nothing is simpler than to show that Lincoln's principal political 
actions contain much that is aesthetically repulsive, logically 
inadequate, farcical in form and politically contradictory. as is done 
by the English Pindar of slaves, /The Times/, /The Saturday Review/ 
and/tutti quanti/. But Lincoln's place in the history of the United 
States and of mankind will, nevertheless, be next to that of Washington! 
Nowadays, when the insignificant struts about melodramatically on this 
side of the Atlantic, is it of no significance at all that the 
significant is clothed in everyday dress in the new world?


Lincoln is not the product of a popular revolution. This plebeian, who 
worked his way up from stone-breaker to Senator in Illinois, without 
intellectual brilliance, without a particularly outstanding character, 
without exceptional importance - an average person of good will, was 
placed at the top by the interplay of the forces of universal suffrage 
unaware of the great issues at stake. The new world has never achieved a 
greater triumph than by this demonstration that, given its political and 
social organization, ordinary people of good will can accomplish feats 
which only heroes could accomplish in the old world!


Hegel once observed that comedy is in fact superior to tragedy and 
humourous reasoning superior to grandiloquent reasoning. Although 
Lincoln does not possess the grandiloquence of historical action, as an 
average man of the people he has its humour. When does he issue the 
proclamation declaring that from January 1, 1863, slavery in the 
Confederacy shall be abolished? At the very moment when the Confederacy 
as an independent state decided on "peace negotiations" at its Richmond 
Congress. At the very moment when the slave-owners of the border states 
believed that the invasion of Kentucky by the armies of the South had 
made the "peculiar institution" just as safe as was their domination 
over their compatriot, President Abraham Lincoln in Washington.


- MECW 19:250




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[Marxism] Dutch elections: all about Geert Wilders (Trump clone)

[Jeff via Marxism]

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It has been repeatedly warned that the rise of the far right (following 
Brexit and Trump) would be soon tested in 3 European general elections: 
France, Germany, and the Netherlands. The first of those occurs on 
Wednesday in the Netherlands, and since I'm about the only one on the 
list who posts from Holland, I feel obligated to make a mention of 
what's happening.


As in all these cases, the significant aspect of the election is the 
rise of the far right (or "fascism," but I don't want to argue 
terminology) here in the form of noted Islamophobe Geert Wilders (and 
his nominal party the PVV). The concern is that the PVV has risen the 
wave of anti-immigrant racism, and has recently been the leading party 
in the polls with over 20% voter support (not enough to form a 
government, fortunately). Below is a link to an article I ran across by 
a leading Dutch newspaper they (unusually) supplied in English (I guess 
expecting an international audience). It's basically factual and fair so 
I recommend reading it if you're interested. And anyway, he's been on 
his anti-Islam hate campaign for many years so there isn't much new 
being written about him by the left, let alone in English.


One twist in the last few days involves the Dutch government's actions 
to PHYSICALLY prevent campaigning around an upcoming referendum in 
Turkey (which Turks in the Netherlands can vote in) by members of the 
(ruling) AK party. They refused landing rights to an airplane and 
stopped one in a car from reaching the Turkish embassy. About the same 
thing happened in Germany, as you may have read. I thought it was an 
outrageous denial of freedom of speech and assembly (unfortunately no 
outcry from the left, I believe because there is no sympathy for the 
AKP), and most Turkish felt the same, especially in Rotterdam, where 
demonstrators were confronted by the police and arrested (also arrests 
in Amsterdam). The Dutch PM Mark Rutte is widely seen to have been using 
the crackdown on Turkish political activity in order to boost his 
anti-Islam credentials in the eyes of the voters who might otherwise be 
voting for Wilders for that reason. So there is a tight race based on 
who would be more effectively anti-Islam and anti-immigrant :-(


I should also add (since this isn't covered in the following article) 
that although he is similar to Trump in most ways, Geert Wilders' 
fascism isn't so much inherited from the Nazi tradition (like much of 
Trump's team) so anti-semitism isn't an issue (his hate concentrates on 
Muslims and people of color). He is VERY pro-Israel, frequently citing 
Israel's oppression of the Palestinians as a model for what should be 
done in Europe. He frequently travels to Israel and is believed to be on 
the payroll of the Mossad.


- Jeff

https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2017/03/08/who-is-geert-wilders-the-dutch-populist-who-could-win-but-not-rule-a1549168







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[Marxism] Why we should support movement agaunst Tump's walll: a replu to the American SWP majority leadership

[Anthony Brain via Marxism]

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 A letter to American Militant by Anthony Brain on why thy should support the 
demand to oppose build the wall on the Mexican border!

  
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A letter to American Militant by Anthony Brain on why thy should support th...
 March 13th 2017 Lenin when he wrote “What is to be done” that revolutionaries 
had to oppose every Tsarist oppres...  |   |

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[Marxism] Fwd: Trump and National Neoliberalism | Dollars & Sense

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Trump’s ascendance means the end of globalism—but not of neoliberalism.


http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2016/1216bregerbush.html
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[Marxism] Fwd: Enlightenment values? No thanks | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://louisproyect.org/2017/03/13/enlightenment-values-no-thanks/
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[Marxism] An Incisive Play About Hasidism, With Actors Who Lived It

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, Mar. 13 2017
An Incisive Play About Hasidism, With Actors Who Lived It
By COREY KILGANNON

Melissa Weisz, a working actress in Manhattan, did not exactly grow up a 
drama club kid.


As a Hasidic Jew, she spent her childhood with eight siblings in the 
Yiddish-speaking and largely insular Satmar sect in Borough Park, 
Brooklyn. She had little knowledge of secular theater, film and 
television, which are frowned upon as sacrilegious.


At 19, Ms. Weisz entered into an arranged marriage, but she opted for 
divorce after four years because of her increasing differences with the 
strict Hasidic way of life. She stunned her family and friends by 
leaving her Hasidic community to seek more opportunity. She attended 
college and eventually became an actress.


Lately, she has found herself among other Hasidic exiles, speaking 
Yiddish and struggling with the strict rules of Orthodox Judaism.


They are part of the cast of “God of Vengeance,” Sholem Asch’s 1907 
play, which is being revived by the New Yiddish Repertory Company. The 
Off Broadway production will open Tuesday at the Theater at St. 
Clement’s Church in Manhattan.


In the play, a Jewish brothel owner in early 20th-century Eastern Europe 
tries to keep his daughter unstained by brothel life. He soon begins to 
see her drifting away from the faith and into a forbidden lesbian 
relationship with a prostitute, played by Ms. Weisz.


Ms. Weisz, now 32, is routinely brought to tears in rehearsals watching 
this distancing between father and daughter, especially since it evokes 
memories of having to explain to her parents that she was leaving the 
Hasidic religion and lifestyle.


During certain parts of the play, Ms. Weisz said, the thought crosses 
her mind that “this is my family, and this was my scenario.”


The play rekindles the pain even while reinforcing her decision to 
follow her own path, she said.


Another prostitute is played by Malky Goldman, 29, an actress who uses 
Goldman as a stage name to avoid causing discomfort for her family. Like 
Ms. Weisz, she broke from her Hasidic background. Their castmates 
include three young male actors who also broke away from parochial, 
ultra-Orthodox lifestyles in Brooklyn.


“God of Vengeance” is the professional stage debut for the five Hasidic 
exiles. Having grown up speaking primarily Yiddish, they were natural 
choices for the play, which offers projected English subtitles for the 
audience.


On a deeper level, their personal stories of shaking off the strong 
bonds of Hasidic life have helped them connect with the essence of their 
characters and the poignant themes of the play, said Ms. Weisz, who 
called her Hasidic upbringing “my background for my character.”


“There’s a depth that we bring to the show,” she said. “To have the 
complete break of losing your family, that loss. Nobody else can play it 
as intensely.”


But that intensity has a price, with the play dredging up the anguish of 
becoming alienated from family and friends and abandoning the only life 
they had known.


Even if they have achieved rapprochement with their families, the actors 
said, they would not bother inviting them to the show. After all, most 
Hasidic Jews would not attend even a tame secular play, much less one 
with forbidden themes and scenes involving Hasidic characters, they 
said. And relatives would be further offended knowing that the actors 
had grown up Hasidic.


Ms. Weisz said her upbringing helped her employ the proper inflections, 
gestures and even Torah references onstage. It also helped her 
intuitively connect with the play’s themes of religious hypocrisy, 
gender roles and forbidden sexuality.


“It’s something so visceral, no one can really, really get it the way we 
can,” she said.


Ms. Goldman agreed.

“We have the back story of the community firsthand,” Ms. Goldman said. 
“It goes straight to your heart, because you know these people. You’ve 
been there.”


For Shmully Blesofsky, 35, growing up in the Lubavitcher sect in Crown 
Heights, Brooklyn, allowed him to draw on characteristics from two 
Hasidic uncles: one a modest mensch, the other a swaggering figure who 
would cut a wide swath during prayer sessions at the Lubavitcher 
headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway.


The religious exiles have proved a welcome infusion for the New Yiddish 
Rep. Its founder and artistic director, David Mandelbaum, invited the 
five actors to join the company after meeting them at a theater workshop 
last summer.


With members of the New Yiddish Rep almost all over 50, the company has 
been challenged by the decline of Yiddish, except in Hasidic strongholds 
in Brooklyn and some 

[Marxism] 2 of a Farmer’s 3 Children Overdosed. What of the Third — and the Land?

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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From the article below: He and his father talked about motorbikes, 
weather and politics. The elder Mr. Winemiller, who was among the 68 
percent of voters in the county who supported Donald J. Trump for 
president, was rankled by scenes of political protest on the news. He 
saw only disorder and lawlessness.


“There are too many people who are too wrapped up in their lives. All 
they want to do is go out, bitch and complain,” he said. “My view on 
Donald Trump, he’s what this country needed years ago: someone that’s 
hard-core.”





NY Times, Mar. 13 2017
2 of a Farmer’s 3 Children Overdosed. What of the Third — and the Land?
By JACK HEALY

BLANCHESTER, Ohio — A life of farming taught Roger Winemiller plenty 
about harsh twists of fate: hailstorms and drought, ragweed infestations 
and jittery crop prices. He hadn’t bargained on heroin.


Then, in March 2016, Mr. Winemiller’s daughter, Heather Himes, 31, died 
of an opioid overdose at the family farmhouse, inside a first-floor 
bathroom overlooking fields of corn and soybeans. Mr. Winemiller was the 
one who unlocked the bathroom door and found her slumped over, a syringe 
by her side.


Nine months later, Mr. Winemiller’s older son, Eugene, 37, who once 
drove trucks and tractors on the family’s 3,400-acre farm, overdosed at 
his mother’s home. Family members and medics had been able to revive him 
after earlier overdoses. Not this one.


Overdoses are churning through agricultural pockets of America like a 
plow through soil, tearing at rural communities and posing a new threat 
to the generational ties of families like the Winemillers.


Farm bureaus’ attention to seed, fertilizer and subsidies has been 
diverted to discussions of overdoses. Volunteer-run heroin support 
groups are popping up in rural towns where clinics and drug treatment 
centers are an hour’s drive away, and broaching public conversations 
about addiction and death that close-knit neighbors and even some 
families of the dead would prefer to keep out of view.


And at the end of a long gravel driveway, Mr. Winemiller, 60, has been 
thinking about the uncertain seasons ahead. His last surviving son, 
Roger T. Winemiller, 35, spent years using prescription pain pills, 
heroin and methamphetamines, and was jailed for a year on drug charges. 
He is now in treatment and living with his father.


The son dreams of taking over the farm someday. The father is wary.

“Would I like to have one of my kids working the farm, side by side, 
carrying my load when I can’t?” Mr. Winemiller said. “Yes. But I’m a 
realist.”


Mr. Winemiller and a cousin inherited the farm in 1993 when an uncle 
died, and they own and run the business together. His surviving son has 
not used drugs for two months and says he is committed to recovery.


But Mr. Winemiller says his first priority is “to keep the land intact.” 
He worries about what could happen to the business if he turned over his 
share of the farm and his son relapsed — or worse — a year or a decade 
down the line.


He also keeps a pouch of overdose-treating nasal spray in the living 
room now, just in case.


The Winemillers live on the eastern edge of Clermont County, about an 
hour east of Cincinnati, where a suburban quilt of bedroom towns, office 
parks and small industry thins into woods and farmland, mostly for corn 
and soybeans. Apple orchards and pumpkin farms — now closed for the 
season — are tucked among clusters of small churches, small businesses 
and even smaller ranch-style brick houses. Every so often, the roads 
wind past the gates of a big new mansion or high-end subdivision being 
built in the woods.


Jobs have returned to the area since the recession, and manufacturing 
businesses are popping up along the freeway that circles Cincinnati. The 
county’s unemployment rate is only 4.1 percent, and every morning, the 
city-bound lanes of skinny country roads are packed with people heading 
to work.


But the economic resilience has done little to insulate the area from a 
cascade of cheap heroin and synthetic opiates like fentanyl and 
carfentanil, an elephant tranquilizer, which have sent overdose rates 
soaring across much of the country, but especially in rural areas like 
this one.


Drug overdoses here have nearly tripled since 1999, and the state as a 
whole has been ravaged. In Ohio, 2,106 people died of opioid overdoses 
in 2014, more than in any other state, according to an analysis of the 
most recent federal data by the Kaiser Family Foundation.


In rural Wayne Township, where the Winemillers and about 4,900 other 
people live, the local fire department answered 18 overdose calls last 
year. 

[Marxism] American Socialist film premiere reminder

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Tomorrow at 9:15pm, at the Cinépolis Chelsea theater in NYC (260 W 23rd 
St.), Yale Strom's documentary on Eugene V. Debs will be shown as part 
of the Socially Relevant Film Festival (http://www.ratedsrfilms.org/).


This is a truly exceptional biodoc about a figure whose relevance to 
today's political situation should be obvious.


trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS2r9BUIVlk
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Re: [Marxism] [UCE] Fwd: What is Trumpism? Behind the “Deep State Coup”

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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Great stuff.
A couple weeks ago Mitch Cohen - former anarchist turned liberal
conspiracist - had copied parts of it in a post to the UFPJ list and
trashed it viciously (where was it originally posted?)
This is certainly a great time to read Richard's translations of and
commentaries on Victor Serge.
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[Marxism] [UCE] Fwd: What is Trumpism? Behind the “Deep State Coup”

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=13202
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[Marxism] Assad is a long way from victory in Syrian conflict

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Assad is a long way from victory in Syrian conflict
Russia and Iran have a costly dilemma on their hands in Syria

FT MARCH 8, 2017 by: David Gardner

The destruction of Syria, which began six years ago this month, shows 
limited signs of abating, even though Bashar-al Assad’s Russia and 
Iran-backed regime recaptured the rebels’ last urban stronghold of 
eastern Aleppo in December.


A partial ceasefire is very patchy. A bewildering assortment of forces — 
including Russian, American, Iranian and Turkish as well as Kurdish 
militia and Iran-backed Shia paramilitaries — crowd the battlefield and 
episodically combine against Isis. Al-Qaeda can still strike at the 
heart of the regime, as it showed with a deadly attack on military 
intelligence in Homs last month. Mainstream rebels are regrouping to 
protect themselves. Talks about a transition out of war are going nowhere.


President Vladimir Putin’s Russia, whose air force was decisive in 
salvaging the Assads and which helped pound Aleppo into rubble, has 
decided this is the time to tell Europe to finance the reconstruction of 
Syria.


That is brazen. The expression “you break it, you own it” became a 
geopolitical jingle after the US in 2003 used a bull to liberate the 
china shop of Iraq, where their soldiers still find themselves, hundreds 
of billions of dollars later, fighting the most virulent jihadis yet. 
But translated into Russian for Syria, the meaning would appear to be: 
“we break it, you pay for it, but we and our friends own it”.


No doubt the Kremlin sees signs the US under President Donald Trump has 
ditched any idea of toppling President Assad. In Europe, moreover, 
political panic about any further surge of migrants and refugees from 
the region seems paramount.


Yet the confidence of Moscow — and Tehran — should not hide the fact 
that they have a real and costly dilemma on their hands in Syria.


First, the extent to which the Assad government controls the roughly 35 
per cent of Syrian territory it holds is moot. The manpower shortages of 
a minority regime have made it dependent on Russia, Iran and powerful 
paramilitaries such as Lebanon’s Hizbollah. Damascus has had to 
subcontract local control to a mosaic of warlords and militias, private 
armies and racketeers — all invested in the lucrative distortions of a 
war economy characterised by penury for the mass of Syrians, roughly 
half of whom have been uprooted. There is nothing stable about that.


Second, to what extent are Russia and Iran willing to assist the Assads 
in breaking out of their mini-state and reconquering the rest of Syria?


The Syrian state almost certainly does not have the numbers to retake 
and garrison eastern Syria. Look at how Palmyra in central Syria keeps 
changing hands — the regime has only just recaptured this Graeco-Roman 
jewel after it fell to Isis for a second time in December while the 
focus was on Aleppo. Palmyra, moreover, was taken back after US air 
strikes on Isis there. The Syrian conflict is protean and 
shape-changing, but President Assad would be unwise to bet the palace on 
the recurrence of such a weird coalition.


Third, ostensible control of “useful Syria” is false comfort. Aside from 
the security fact that much of the rest is jihadi-infested, this implies 
the east is almost all “useless” desert. It is not. The resilience of 
the almost 50-year-old Assad regime required the energy resources and 
crops of the east. Raqqa, Hasaka and Deir Ezzor provinces produced 60 
per cent of the country’s cereals, 75 per cent of its cotton, and all 
its oil and gas in 2010, before the rebellion. Far from useless, the 
east is essential to a regime recovering minimal self-sufficiency. 
Syria’s power-generating capacity, dependent on gasfields in the east, 
is about a quarter of what it was before the war.


Russia and Iran would have to fight to retake all of Syria. That would 
be costly, in blood and cash. It would greatly increase the autonomy of 
Mr Assad, now a ward of two states. Yet their Syrian rump protectorate 
is already very costly. Arab securocrats say Iran alone had to spend 
$8bn a year in 2013-14. Russia and Iran are dependent on oil and gas at 
a time of depressed prices and both subject to international sanctions.


True, Moscow has taken out long leases on Mediterranean port facilities 
at Tartus that it intends to expand, and an air base near Latakia. 
Tehran’s revolutionary guard — a business empire as well as 
expeditionary force — has secured potentially valuable mobile telecoms, 
phosphate mining, port and power-generation contracts.


But the sort of money needed to reconstruct Syria is likely