Good afternoon Michael: Thx for appending the prior note you had written on Tariq Ali - which makes sense to me - no problems. Again, I have no interest in defending Ali at all - he is pretty virulently anti-my people, meaning what I call ML-ists. I have followed his career over decades since the Red Lion Square demonstrations in London and IMG days. A very interesting man, despite my thoughts on his overall label. I agree with you he obviosuly does seek 'visible glory' and celebrity spotlights.
But on the current thing that Mark had posted at NLR, what I see is this: i) Ali: "None but a few corrupt cronies will be shedding tears at the tyrant’s departure." I think we are all likely to agree with this. ii) Ali - "Like Iraq and Libya, where the US has a lock on the oil, Syria will now become a shared American–Turkish colony. . . Now, Assad’s ousting has created a different type of vacuum – likely to be filled by NATO’s Turkey and the US via the ‘ex-al-Qaida’ Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (the rebranding of its leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani as a freedom fighter after his stint in a US prison in Iraq is par for the course), as well as Israel. The latter’s contribution was enormous, having disabled Hezbollah and wrecked Beirut. . . Geostrategically, it is a triumph for Washington and Israel. " This I agree with. I would put Turkey in as one of the key victors, but we shall see what happens. I fear it is not going to be good for Rojava. It seems you do not? If not what is/are the faulty parts here? ii) Ali: "Yet the US victory had an unintended but predictable side-effect: Iraq became a rump Shia state, enormously strengthening Iran’s position in the region. " On this - right now, I think he gets it at least partially wrong - I have cited before stuff on how there was actually an accommodation between Iran and the USA in the end, which kept 'a sort of balance'. I may well have been wrong. I fully intend to re-explore that further pending time. iii) Ali: "The eventual uprising against the younger Assad in 2011 was triggered by his turn to neoliberalism and the exclusion of the peasantry." Seems right to me. Although his characterisation in the para above this clip, of the 'peace' that Assad had obtained seems a bit gilded. What have I got wrong here? Be well, H -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#34324): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/34324 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/110333291/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
