Imperialism - the highest state of paleoconservatism...?

 

Claims of the incoming (we can now expect) president Trump to Greenland - or rather, claims that he might make a claim - have re-fueled the predictable barrage against the resurrection of this American habit by a Trumpist administration, an adjective now held above the real, and very accepted, prospect of a second Trump one, but the inevitable possibility of one of a similar ideological and rhetorical stripe, transcending the very mortal and limited prospects of the once and future president himself. Resurrect, not because previous, liberal to conservative, decent and democratic administrations have engaged in foreign wars, all but the very established taboo of annexation in the formal sense, in short, with a term associated with the bald bad man, imperialism, now 

The Conscience of the West Wing

 

Or indeed the Western world. So much in his life was akin to a fairytale, that one might expect him to stroll past his hundredth birthday, vote, ensure the continual succession and power of his party, and then 

The Conscience and the Wor(l)d

 

The notion of a Secretary-General of the United Nations, as the half-Soviet, half-liberal internationalist-sounding office of supreme pontiff of this organisation is known, is not so young as it might seem at a first glance. While , the Catholic world has long had - which extends long beyond Catholic-majority countries, or the consciences of Catholics themselves. This is obviously a precarious position 

What then, is the purpose of the office of Pope, from an international perspective? Well, considering his national duties are very limited (if garbed in autocratic powers present no elsewhere on the continent, albeit broadly "liberally" exercised) there is nothing else than the international to the tiara. 

Against this, I must say I never like the Bishop, as he is, as much as when he is under barrage of criticism. Because it is when the mighty (as he undoubtedly is, if seldom as mighty as "earthly power", lest we collapse into pure "soft power" belief) 

Al Kasr Al Ba'ath

 

The rapid movements on the road to Damascus forced an reconsideration worthy the wording regarding the future and prospects of the already-tiptoed and deeply strained (to the tune of hundreds of thousands dead, and more wounded and, notably, displaced) Assad regime. Now, with the capital encircled and entered by rebel forces - this expression, so much better when spouted by a Southern English accent in front of the panorama window of the Death Star - and a new government inevitable, if not already put in place in practice,  . 

Nevertheless, with any negative consequences burgeoning before the door, it must be spelled, as Simon Jenkins' word, "inevitable". Whatever . This scourge of jihadist democracy, of mass movement pertaining to "islamism", whatever the contents of that almost-useless term (nearly as useless as the nearly appropriate definition of a "fascism for the Ummah") but also of popular, in the case of Syria, inexorable Sunni(st) support, is a trial which will endure beyond Trump's rhetoric of staying the hand, or the missile, Obama's deeply regrettable speech on the virtue of chemicals as opposed to lead, and any resolution adopted by a sometimes deadlocked United Nations, most of whose members probably watch with some semblance of relief. 

I will say this: As in the case of Iraq, I wish the breaking of Assad had come sooner, and the fallout will . And with the sweeping away of this second, or rather first, national socialist minority dictatorship of the Ba'athist brand, Monsieur Aflaq's legacy has in no small sense been capped, to an astonishingly shame-inducing result, especially considering the human costs. In no sense should the black-red-white be missed, even at the backdrop of Sunni-jihadist activism and violence, which it in no small sense induced and incubated for its paradoxical survival, I mean prolonging. In the end, its creed was as useful as pan-German national socialism, and the minoritarian-tribalist foundation on both sides of Sykes-Picot was in the end as unsustainable as good old Rhodesia, without revelling in tremendous violence and waves of emigration by its future. 

Not next year's model? The moustache will likely be as fashionable as the red-white-black, 

But will it? Really? The breaking of the IS from all fronts, at any rate, as well as conqueror Al Julani's decided break from the Al Qa'ida brand, seems to have . I will not back from my positing of another, stronger jihadist wave as highly likely (if certainly still inevitable, Jenkins-style), especially with a weak coalition government of factions with changing names and armies now expected to sit down and forge a future, with the common enemy gone - wherever - and only the prospect of further death, destruction and debilitation holding them back from standing up and going for another round. 

Further, the Putin(ist) regime has been, in no small sense, discredited . In the words of professor Luttwak, "a bit of a scoundrel; but I protect him to the end", now seems both more , and in a chilling fashion: Whose end, Ser Barristan? Assad's, or Putin's? With Russia decidedly tied down, if not tied up, in its immediate neighbour, it is unlikely that help will be anything beyond Assad's promised cottage, and a lifetime (still a substantial time, for someone who ascended to the presidency at thirty-four) as Pavelic, looking over his shoulder for lawyers and assassins alike. And should Russia undergo similar change, the promise upheld by Ukraine's friends for years, well... let's hope not, considering its nuclear arsenal was not nipped in the bud as proposed by the (then) egregious Mr. Russell. 

Next generation's model? No, not a victorious Aleppo or a liberated Damascus, but Stockholm. How many of them will carry the flag home, and for how long? What is the promise cheered, beyond a pure negative? 

What then is the best scenario? Well, in order for the numerous coalitions - victorious, and those supposedly defeated - to form a coalition government, compromises must be made, and the scorn of those harbouring violent designs needs be quelled, from without if not within. With Mr. Julani's recent past - if it can be called a past - of not violence, but violence in the black-and-white brand, echoed in his CNN interview with a, from certain viewpoints, scantily clad provocatrix of an interviewer, it is certain that foreign military headquarters and security services, as well as domestic forces and the now-vast Syrian diaspora will consider the prospect of a second war with little break, and launch it rather than submit to the whip of the once-dreaded Nusra Front - "al Qa'ida in Syria", "islamist", "jihadists", decidedly so. Well, all true, and perhaps well, if you ask the crowds now merrily riding decapitated statues of the deceased Assad and the windblown Assad, but asides the question of the prospects for launching a great jihad - Ibn Saud's attitude around 1926, or the Brotherhood's - with a ragtag coalition, surrounded by Turkish, Israeli and a vengeful Iran and impatient Saudi Arabia, all but surely collapsing the coalition itself. Julani has come far from his Al Qai'da beardless boyhood roots, joining the loose-spun network of the black banner before he throttled the Bin Ladinist/Zawahirist gas and took after the move of his feudal colleague in Iraq, the doggedly deceased Mr. Baghdadi, and seems poised to form a national resistance movement now with governmental power within his grasp, and end the conflict rather than carrying it on against his victorious brethren, and all but certainly end like Baghdadi, to small benefit to either himself or the Syrian people. In this choice, pragmatism and "national liberation" will win out over dogmatic global jihad. 

The new Russians. While expelled under different circumstances, their lifeline is the last hope offered by a Russian autocrat not above utilising refugeehood as a weapon. 

The same could be said for the Taliban, however, and for the cosmetic changes and presence of cable TV and cellphones, the new generation seems just as experimentally and assiduously cruel as their 1990s forebears, with the Buddhist (and other) treasure trove of Afghanistan proffering scant relief against the human flesh and blood forced to adapt to a cramped space limited by the lines of Quranic reasoning. Is this what is what awaits Syria? 

I think not, as within this struggle . The future may thus spell jihad and caliphate (well, not really, but let's say emirate) but not the other without the one. Too many interested parties, including the revolutionary-insurrectionist-post-Assad government's international credit depends on the . With the choice of pursuing a course for a Hizb al-Dunya, or the path of jihad, now against his Syrian brothers, I suspect Julani will select the pragmatic path, and become a new Assad rather than an all-out assault on Assad's legacy. While the situation for minorities, and women, will almost certainly be precarious, it has been for years and 

The overthrow, long awaited and called for, of the slobbering dauphin was called for, and a necessary step rather than a sufficient one (as Zizek said, more evocatively). But it will not write the end of Syria's tragedy, and while the eventually-to-reemerge black ragtag of "ISIS", not the goddess, may have seemed a failure their critique of Sykes-Picot was not wrong and the boundaries remains an obstacle to any preferential successful state in the old Ottoman Wilaya. In part to be restored, even as a client state, which will not restore the supposedly blissful past of Turkish rule, the tutelage of an impossible Alawite-Ba'athist minority rule is finally broken. The celebration called for in Damascus, in Stockholm and elsewhere needs be recognised and should be followed, but do keep the bottle and break it if you must. 

This Lady of Ours

If I pronounced the "notre" of "Notre Dame (de Paris, especially for Indianians)" as "ours" in the broadest human sense, I wouldn't come across too many . In a myriad of cathedrals christened as "for the lady", the mother virgin of Jesus, this one rises above the herd, the skyline, the nominal list to a position so unchallengeable that, had the façade indeed fallen five years past and - inexplicably - not been restored, it is no exaggeration or blind trust she would have kept her hold on the name still. 

Thus when, with such force and sadness and, dare I say it, and not without commemoration to the firefighters but also the lady herself, some resilience, she burned, it 

The Emperor, eleven score years later

 

At the time of his coronation, the man born (not "known", as the now famous series states) as Nabullione Buonaparte - an Italian-scented name - on just-annexed Corsica would have been called many things now though illicit, grandiose, or even admirable. At 35, he crowned - so to speak - his hitherto achievements by raising and lowering, by his own hand, the crown he reinstated quite incredibly, as if humiliating the enemies and friends of the revolution alike. 

Twenty years ago, a TV series - then, also incredulously, French - marked as the most expensive ever was released, starring Christian Clavier as the grandiose, but doomed (and decidedly diminutive) emperor, the inevitable (as far as a French production is concerned, with even Francois Cluzet blazing from his absence) Gerard Depardieu as the useful but fickle Fouché, and John Malkovich as the emblematic, enigmatic, ethereal Talleyrand (titles are useless). In this recognition of the bicentennial, the motif was clearly one more favourable than the image of the tyrannical, if doomed, Napoleon lasting as far as memories - and survivors - of the regime and its wars persisted. While recognising his ruthlessness (which was, by a turn of phrase, not his alone) it was clearly shining gold through the gloom of a Medieval, pre-modern Europe as the act of the great man took himself, and us, into a new era - destroying himself, indeed, but not so much by evil, or even corruption of the powerful by power, but rather the less significant, small-minded and vile which surrounded his genius. More recently, a biopic by the emblematic 

The one and last (?) transition

 

After weeks and weeks - and before that, years, to put in single digits - of the cry of fascism, the seeming fact of is finally . Notably, the ever-lasting promises to resign partition in the American experiment and depart the republic for the old, or otherwise other, more blessed swathes of the "new" world, has been followed by sullen sulking and return to the normalcy of generating income. Income which the coming administration, perhaps even in the minds of the critics, will be successful in collecting, with quarterly revenues and GDP growth boosted beyond those the fateful year, if we are to trust this narration, of 2024. 

Doubtlessly 2024 was a watershed, as 1824 (with its aftermath of 1828 and 1829-1837) was and as 1924 might have been, had the dangerously radical La Follette expanded his success beyond the people's republic of Wisconsin, and what follows is to be written into the history books in tones of , or at best, torpor. 

Rape, unwashed unkept hands, Russian espionage, the accusations have hardly eased since 2016, when the calls of either "old-school neocon Republican goodfella", or straight out "plutocrat" (fair enough for the progeny of Exxon Mobile) hit all the nominees, and Mike Flynn fell.