The horrifying prospect of imminent warfare should frighten anyone with a clear view of the world. Only an immense good can counter the evil inherent in the present situation.
The July 31 assassination of Hamas leader and negotiator Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran sends two messages: Israel is not interested in negotiating a peace deal, and it is willing to commit an assassination right in Tehran’s capital. Like the April attack by Israel on an Iranian diplomatic facility in Damascus, Syria, this assassination is a provocation: it is intended to draw a response from Iran, which will then be treated as if it were some fresh, unprovoked attack.
In an appearance on “Dialogue Works,” former CIA analyst Larry Johnson warned that the U.S. looks ready to support Israel’s escalation of war against Iran, which could engulf the region, and the world, in rapidly escalating warfare.
Let’s put the assassination in context:
On July 24, Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu descended on Washington, where he addressed a joint session of Congress, receiving applause and standing ovations with a rapturous fervor that would make even a North Korean leader jealous.
On July 29, far-right Israeli lunatics stormed two prisons to free soldiers who had been detained on reports that they were torturing and raping Palestinian prisoners.
Although some consternation was expressed in a cabinet meeting, the attack on military facilities was not only not meaningfully punished, but was even praised by members of the Israeli cabinet, raising the question of who is running the state and whether the rule of law means anything.
On July 31, Haniyeh was killed in Tehran, at the IRGC guest house where he was staying on his visit for the inauguration of the new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
“Those behind this political assassination must have realized how dangerous the ramifications could be for the entire region,” Russian diplomat Dmitry Polyanskiy told the UN Security Council on the day of the attack. “Such attempts to drag Iran into a regional confrontation tend to destabilize the already highly charged atmosphere in the region. The vicious practice of targeted killings of high-profile political and military figures is bringing the Middle East to the verge of a region-wide war.” Representatives of fellow BRICS members China and Brazil also spoke up.
The choice of Haniyeh as assassination victim makes it clear that the target is the peace negotiations themselves, in a case of shooting the messenger. Media reports of an Israeli cabinet meeting tell the tale of frustrated negotiators and an intransigent prime minister.
Iran immediately accused the U.S. of complicity in the assassination.
U.S. claims that it was unaware of the planned killing are hard to square with the rapid response to bolster Israel’s desire for expanded war:
Senator Lindsey Graham introduced on July 31 a joint resolution authorizing an attack on Iran on the basis of that nation’s development of a nuclear weapon.
On August 1, President Biden called Netanyahu to send him stern words … and additional military forces. The Pentagon worked rapidly and announced on August 2 “adjustments to U.S. military posture designed to improve U.S. force protection, to increase support for the defense of Israel” in the form of the deployment of military equipment and thousands of members of the armed services.
The world now looks to Iran to see how it will respond. Larry Johnson believes that its response will be bigger than that following the April attack on its facility in Damascus. At the time, Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles, targeting Israeli military facilities, and almost all were shot down. Will Iran act the same way today? Does the world really depend on restraint shown by Iran following an attack on its own territory, on the very day of a presidential inauguration? Will Israel preemptively strike Iran? The situation is primed to blow, and any spark could spell the end.
As if that immediate threat weren’t enough, consider the implications of the July 10 joint statement by the United States and Germany, issued in conjunction with the NATO summit. The brief statement reads, in full:
“The United States will begin episodic deployments of the long-range fires capabilities of its Multi-Domain Task Force in Germany in 2026, as part of planning for enduring stationing of these capabilities in the future. When fully developed, these conventional long-range fires units will include SM-6, Tomahawk, and developmental hypersonic weapons, which have significantly longer range than current land-based fires in Europe. Exercising these advanced capabilities will demonstrate the United States’ commitment to NATO and its contributions to European integrated deterrence.”
The placement of hypersonic long-range missiles in Germany could leave Moscow with only three or four minutes’ warning of a nuclear attack, warned MIT professor Ted Postol, who likened it to a new Cuban Missile Crisis, but one from which it might be impossible to recover. “This really is insanity,” he said.
Postol is right.
But what would sanity look like today?
The August 6 and 9 anniversaries of the 1945 nuclear bombings of Japan provide an opportunity for meaningful reflection.
“I’m totally convinced that mankind is capable of reason!” exclaimed Helga Zepp-LaRouche on the August 2 meeting of the International Peace Coalition. "We are the intelligent species, we have produced an unbelievable wealth of discoveries. We have brought humanity from the very low level of population density of maybe 1 million people on the planet, and now we are 8 billion. If you think that each of these 8 billion, if developed properly, could be a genius like Beethoven, like Einstein, like Confucius, like so many other great minds. I believe in the power of the creativity of the human species, that we are on the verge of either destroying ourselves or to create an order which allows for every single country on the planet to survive, if we agree on the concept of sovereignty and equality of all of these countries.
“So, while it looks very desperate right now, I think it’s very important to keep up this vision of where we have to go to solve these problems….”
The human species is absolutely unique among all known life, and its economic, social, and other organization should reflect that human character. Unending progress—scientific, economic, cultural, and moral—is our true destiny. By overcoming, forever, the oligarchical adolescence of mankind, we can reach for a future in the stars, building a better tomorrow, rather than fighting over the resources created by past actions.
More than a thousand cities are hosting demonstrations on August 6. Attend one. And organize for the next meeting of the International Peace Coalition, on August 9, to be a real breakout. Come to that discussion prepared with reports of your activities and a willingness to commit to taking action.
The world as a whole, through the United Nations itself, can take action through the General Assembly under UN Resolution 377 “Uniting for Peace.” The LaRouche movement is working to focus such efforts.
