The Lead

What Shall Not Pass Away

by Jason Ross (EIRNS) — Apr. 10, 2026

Abraham Lincoln, in an 1859 speech, recalled the story of a command given by an Eastern monarch to his wise men: to devise a sentence true and appropriate in all times and situations. They returned with the words “And this, too, shall pass away.” Lincoln accepted the phrase’s power—its chastening force in the hour of pride, its consolation in affliction—but offered a different view. “Let us hope, rather, that by the best cultivation of the physical world, beneath and around us; and the intellectual and moral world within us, we shall secure an individual, social, and political prosperity and happiness, whose course shall be onward and upward, and which, while the earth endures, shall not pass away.”

Lincoln’s answer was not merely hope. It was cultivation—active, deliberate human work on both the physical and the moral world.

On Friday, April 10, that cultivating impulse was demonstrated in Beijing. KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun and Communist Party of China leader Xi Jinping sat down together for the first high-level meeting between the two parties in a decade. They spoke of peace, of institutionalized dialogue, of a Taiwan Strait that could become “a strait linking kinship, civilization, and hope” of appreciation for each side’s development. Cheng even invited Xi to Taiwan, an invitation no KMT leader had ever extended. This deliberate political cultivation is the same sort of impulse that built the Belt and Road Initiative, the same impulse that underlies what the LaRouche movement has promoted as the World Land-Bridge: the interconnected network of development corridors linking the continents through shared infrastructure and shared prosperity. When nations build together, the logic of permanent conflict loses its force. That is the architecture of what shall not pass away.

Against that stands the architecture of what must pass away, but which is doing enormous damage on its way out. One question looms: Who will rein in Benjamin Netanyahu? Pakistan brokered a ceasefire. Iran accepted it. The White House confirmed its terms, including Lebanon. Then Netanyahu called Trump, and the terms changed. On the first day of the ceasefire, Israel struck 100 targets in Lebanon in 10 minutes, killing more than 300 people. The U.S. delegation flew to Islamabad for negotiations that cannot proceed, Tehran says, until Lebanon is included. And so the gushing spigot of American support remains open, and every effort at peace seems to pass through the veto of a man who said in 2001, unaware he was being recorded: “America is a thing you can move very easily.… They won’t get in the way.” According to the New York Times, the CIA director called his war plan “farcical,” the Secretary of State called it “bullshit,” and the Vice President warned it would be a strategic disaster. The Pope condemned the killing. The question of who closes the spigot is the question on which the next phase of history turns. Permanent tension is a policy, and it serves specific interests. The World Land-Bridge dissolves those interests by making cooperation more valuable than conflict. That is precisely why it is opposed.

The freedom that distinguishes humanity is the freedom to be better than our impulses, the freedom to do good. Cheng Li-wun exercised that freedom this week. She crossed the strait, climbed the 392 steps of the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, spoke of the “Republic of China” on mainland soil, moved toward practical engagement for joint benefit, and invited her host to Taiwan. These are the kinds of acts that, accumulated, change the direction of history. The war, and those prosecuting it, will pass away. The question is whether it takes civilization with it first.

Let us heed Lincoln’s call, and, “by the best cultivation of the physical world, beneath and around us; and the intellectual and moral world within us,” secure a path forward that will not pass away.

We call on all readers to increase their mobilization for peace. Organize around Zepp-LaRouche’s open letter to Pope Leo XIV. Spread the word on the April 6 EIR Emergency Roundtable Dialogue, summarized in this press release. And circulate the Schiller Institute “Call for Immediate Action To Stop the Madness!” —urging everyone to bring maximum pressure to bear on the U.S. Congress, the President, and civil society.