The Lead

BRICS on the Move; Brits in Panic Mode

by Dennis Small (EIRNS) — Jan. 03, 2024

The British colonial playbook is fairly predictable. If a war they launched is in danger of winding down or moving towards negotiations, they blow the situation up with the most offensive geopolitical provocation imaginable. They taunt their enemy and use targeted violence to try to force him to retaliate in kind.

This is what has happened in the first days of 2024.

In the Ukraine war, where the Kiev regime’s ability to continue the war is rapidly fading, the Russian city of Belgorod was struck by long-range rockets provided to Kiev by NATO countries. The attack targeted the civilian center of town, not once, but various times. Russian President Putin responded: “This is a terrorist attack; there is no other way to describe it. Should we respond in kind? Of course, we can hit squares in Kiev or any other city. But … there are children walking there, mothers with strollers. I understand, because I am quite angry, too, but I want to ask you: do we need to do this, target the squares?”

In the Southwest Asia war, the Netanyahu government under growing international pressure for its crimes against humanity in Gaza, is trying to spread the war throughout the region with carefully designed provocations. A drone was used to assassinate senior Hamas leader Saleh Arouri in Beirut, Lebanon, threatening to trigger full-scale warfare between Israel and Lebanon and the Hezbollah forces located there. And in Iran, a terrorist double-bombing was used to murder in cold blood nearly 100 Iranian civilians visiting the tomb of Qassem Soleimani, the IRGC commander who was assassinated by a U.S. drone four years ago today, and is considered a martyr and a national hero. It is hard to imagine a more calculated, bestial attack on Iran. No one has yet taken credit for the killings, nor has the Iranian government blamed Israel or any other force, but they have promised to retaliate when its authorship is determined.

But something else has happened in the first days of 2024—something far more powerful than the most bloody of British provocations: The BRICS are on the move, and they represent the voice of the Global Majority demanding peace and development.

As of Jan. 1, the BRICS are now 10 strong, and the presidency for 2024 has passed to Russia. China has stated that “we are fully confident in the BRICS’s future,” which has “become a positive and stable force for good in international affairs.” The BRICS’s New Development Bank has just issued a $1 billion credit to member Brazil for infrastructure and other development projects. China and new BRICS member Saudi Arabia have set in place a $6.93 billion swap agreement, to be conducted entirely in Chinese yuan. “Saudi Arabia’s induction into the BRICS bloc is a game-changer,” a Dec. 20 msn.com analysis admitted. “The global financial landscape is undergoing a dramatic transformation, with the BRICS alliance … at the forefront.”

It is this growing reality that the City of London and Wall Street financial Establishment most fears: the emergence of nations committed to a new system that can put them out of business, literally over a long weekend—perhaps when they least expect it.

In her weekly Dialogue webcast, Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche urged citizens of Western nations to join with the Global Majority and the BRICS-led drive for global development, which is precisely what their nations need as well. She began by answering a question about how she remained so optimistic under such dire global conditions:

“I think it has a lot to do with the forecast my late husband, Lyndon LaRouche made in August 1971, when Nixon took the dollar off the gold reserve standard, and replaced the fixed exchange rate with the floating ones. He made the prognosis that if the West would stay on that trajectory, it would lead to a new collapse of the system, a new depression, a new fascism, a new danger of war—or, there would be a completely different economic system.”

Zepp-LaRouche explained her thinking: “When you have the scientific reasons, why a certain system does not function, and why you have to replace it with a different system which is based on completely different principles, namely the principles of physical economy, and not on profit maximization for a few, then in a sense, you don’t look at each event every day and say, this is reality, but you look at the longer arc of history. And I must say, from that standpoint not only has the analysis of my late husband proven to be absolutely on the mark, but also his ideas and our ideas in terms of what should replace it, are becoming more influential all the time.”

She continued: “So, the world is not suddenly becoming a paradise, but one can see very clearly that the voice and the political influence of the Global South is becoming much stronger. It is, among other things, underlined by the fact that Russia took over the chairmanship of the BRICS-Plus two days ago on Jan. 1st.… And the BRICS process is a very promising one, giving hope, as you said, that 600 years of colonialism are really ending, and they will be replaced with a system which respects the sovereignty of each and all of the members of this new majority, and has a policy of non-interference in the internal affairs; respects the different social systems, but especially proceeds with the idea that world politics is not a zero-sum game; but that you can work in the interest of the other and vice versa, and that that means the common good of everybody is progressing….

“So, objectively there is actually reason for optimism!” Zepp-LaRouche concluded.