The 73rd consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition opened today with the strategic briefing by Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche. She announced that earlier this morning she had received an unconfirmed report that a huge fleet of U.S. aircraft had been transferred to U.S. bases in the Middle East, an ominous indication of a pending attack on Iran. She put this in the context of the just-concluded Oct. 22-24 BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia. The BRICS now has 22 affiliated nations—9 permanent members, plus 13 partner nations—representing 57% of world population. It is not inconceivable that an escalation in Southwest Asia could be a reaction to that growth in the Global Majority. Zepp-LaRouche warned that if the West does not change course, “the road to disaster could be a very short one.”
Jason Ross, executive director of The LaRouche Organization, provided a report from on the ground at the BRICS summit in Kazan. He stressed that it is extremely important that China and India have resolved territorial disputes. Their leaders, President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met for the first time since 2019. He read excerpts from an EIR interview of Russian presidential advisor Anton Kobyakov, and quoted from the XVI BRICS Summit Kazan Declaration which endorses multipolarity and urges for changes in the UN Security Council, WTO, IMF, World Bank, and other institutions. It warns that unilateral sanctions pose a risk to international trade, and to the universal human right to development. Brazilian President Lula da Silva, who had to attend remotely, said that the creation of an alternative means for transactions between countries can no longer be postponed.
Nuclear weapons expert Steve Starr agreed with Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche that all the signs indicate that the U.S. is building up forces for an attack on Iran. He presented video evidence to debunk the U.S. media tales that Iran’s missile attack on Israel had failed. Iran destroyed Israeli radar systems, so the U.S. had to provide Israel with a THAAD anti-missile system. Russia has provided high-tech military gear to Iran, better than anything the U.S. has.
Starr continued by sharing a video interview with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.), who suggests that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu hopes to provoke a major Iranian response that will draw the U.S. into the war. Echoing an earlier IPC presentation by Scott Ritter, Starr said that “Iran is a virtual nuclear weapons state,” which could have a bomb in a matter of days.
Next on the agenda were excerpts from a video interview with Norwegian political scientist Glenn Diesen. He said that the development of the BRICS is an effort to break out of the cycle of war. A unipolar or imperial system depends on “divide and rule”; an alliance or bloc system automatically divides the world into sides which can be manipulated. BRICS is not simply a rival bloc or alliance, like the Warsaw Pact versus NATO, and “it is not by definition anti-American…. The U.S. has the option to join it.” “Unipolarity is already gone,” he said, and efforts to bring it back will only bring economic war or in the worst case nuclear war. “We are presenting the Russians with a dilemma,” he warned: Do they embolden NATO by not retaliating, or do they retaliate? This is the dilemma the Russians are talking about. Either path leads to nuclear war and that is why the Russians are changing their nuclear doctrine, he said.
Olivia Zémor, president of France-based Coordination des Appels pour une Paix Juste au Proche-Orient (EuroPalestine), described the activities of her organization, which uses boycotts, demonstrations and legal action to defend Palestine and Palestinians. She emphasized that Europe, not the U.S., is the chief commercial partner of Israel, whose leaders have made no secret of their genocidal intentions.
Dr. Gershon Baskin, an Israeli columnist and social/political activist, described his efforts to coordinate meetings and agreements between Israeli and Palestinian leaders. He asserted that no one in power is actively pursuing peace negotiations, so he has sought out leaders who are not in power. He wants a guardianship of five countries over the religiously important section of Jerusalem. He also supports bringing in China for the reconstruction of Gaza, when the war ends.
Palestinian Ambassador to Nigeria the Hon. Abdullah M. Abu Shawesh responded to Dr. Baskin, by insisting that official Palestinian government figures are on the record calling for negotiations and a two-state solution, and the Israeli government remains the obstacle. Contrary to the narrative that the war against Palestine began after Oct. 7, he said that it was launched by the U.K. in November 1917 with the Balfour Declaration. “The most dangerous war we are facing is the media war,” he said. Fictitious stories of atrocities on Oct. 7 have gone unchallenged. “The current messianic government of Israel” poses a threat to the entire world.
In response, Zepp-LaRouche thanked the Ambassador, and reiterated her view that we need “everything at once”: a commission of inquiry for war crimes, but we also need to break the “eye-for-an-eye” cycle, and we need the Oasis Plan and a new international security and development architecture, in which the issue of Israel and Palestine is one feature. We must use the momentum that now exists with the expanded BRICS. “We should aim for an actual physical conference in Southwest Asia in the short term.” The Ambassador agreed with his “distinguished sister Helga” that “no one is safe until everyone is safe.”
Discussion
LaRouche independent U.S. Congressional candidate Jose Vega (Bronx, CD15) reminded the participants of his upcoming campaign rally, co-sponsored by LaRouche independent U.S. Senate candidate in New York Diane Sare, and agreed on the importance of the BRICS Summit.
Retired CIA analyst and Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) co-founder Ray McGovern said, “I want to call attention to the ‘air of inevitability’” of the upcoming Israeli conflict with Iran. Battle plans of Israeli assault, which were “leaked by an American patriot,” may have delayed this attack. We have ten days before the Nov. 5 election, during which there may be a lull in which we have time to stop it. “Russia is reining in the Iranians,” urging them not to respond to Israel’s provocations. “Is that much to base some hope on? Well, I think it is.”
Peace activist Father Harry Bury, who began his activism during the Vietnam War, described how private citizens from Israel and Palestine worked out a peace plan and delivered it to the Pope.
A British activist asked Zepp-LaRouche whether the expanding BRICS could supplant the moribund United Nations. Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche replied that while she doesn’t exclude this possibility, the key issue for her is whether we can get the nations of the Anglosphere to respond favorably to the new paradigm represented by the BRICS.
A Spanish-speaking representative of “A World Without War or Violence” described how they conducted a march from Costa Rica to New York, holding events along the way.
A participant asked whether there are really North Korean soldiers coming to the aid of Russia in Ukraine. Ray McGovern answered, “Nonsense. Bollocks.” They aren’t needed. Perhaps these rumors are being circulated to justify the entry of South Korean planes and pilots in the Ukraine war.
In conclusion, Zepp-LaRouche said, “It is the tendency of the universe to out-do evil with greater good … but I only believe in those miracles that we do ourselves.” Can we get the United States and Europe to take a positive attitude toward the Global Majority? It’s never the people that are the problem, but rather what Pope John Paul II called the “structures of sin,” like the military-industrial Complex and the global financial interests. We need to go back to a system where “the power of Wall Street was contained.” Read the speeches of the BRICS leaders, compare them to those of the leaders of the “West,” and make your own judgment.
