Today’s 71st consecutive weekly online meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) began with an overview presented by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, reminding participants that two regional crises have the potential to escalate to nuclear war. She speculated that a “private démarche” from Putin may have caused Biden to stop short of giving his blessing to Ukrainian missile strikes into Russia. Russia’s concerns “not to have offensive weapons systems immediately at their border” have not been addressed. As the Ukraine war is rapidly coming to an end, NATO must decide whether to offer an acceptable peace formula to Russia, or to escalate.
She said that the world is waiting to see how Israel will retaliate against Iran; Israel cannot attack Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, as suggested by former President Donald Trump, without the use of nuclear weapons.
Interview with Mahathir bin Mohamad
EIR Editorial Board member Mike Billington introduced an excerpt from his Oct. 6 video interview with 99-year-old former Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir bin Mohamad, describing how, during the Asian Crisis of the 1990s, Mahathir successfully defended his nation against the IMF, hedge funds, and George Soros, using currency controls. He said that this, of course, infuriated the financial oligarchs.
Mahathir described how the U.S. is trying to get the ASEAN countries to confront China. Countries of the Global South are being pressured to take sides in an East-West bloc confrontation, but they want a stable world where they can grow with trade; dividing the world into blocs is counterproductive. We would prefer to solve problems with the United Nations, but since that isn’t working due to vetoes in the Security Council, BRICS is necessary. When a country is recalcitrant like Israel, the world must take action.
Billington recalled how the Wall Street Journal Asia said Mahathir was influenced by Lyndon LaRouche in his opposition to Soros. Mahathir responded that “it was Soros who was responsible for changing the values of currencies.” Soros predicted that Mahathir would destroy Malaysia’s economy, but the exchange controls were a success.
Southwest Asia: Injecting Fear
Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector, promised to continue to “inject fear,” because, “The world is not a safer place than it was the last time I spoke.” If present policies continue, nuclear war is inevitable, he said. He then shocked the participants, saying that Iran is now a nuclear power. They have the technology required to make a simple nuclear weapon, and the Iranian parliament has recommended that Iran withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). “Iran is putting the world on notice that it has nuclear-weapons capability.”
He examined some of the implications of this development. Iran is now a member of BRICS—if Israel attacks, how will Russia respond? “Russia will have Iran’s back.” Ritter agreed with Zepp-LaRouche’s assessment that you can’t attack their facilities without using nuclear weapons, so candidate Trump is de facto encouraging Israel to launch a nuclear strike against Iran. The U.S. vote on Nov. 5 matters, but only if we can get candidates to “walk away” from the use of nuclear weapons.
Zepp-LaRouche responded: “Scott, you succeeded to scare me to death.” Ritter clarified that Iran has not formally declared that it has a nuclear weapon, but if they withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, they could develop a weapon in “less than a week.” He added that “This is a problem of Israel’s own making,” and “the last thing the U.S. wants is for Israel’s nuclear weapons to be discussed in the UN Security Council.” Ritter asked, why did the U.S. UN Ambassador reverse position on two UN resolutions regarding Gaza? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has disregarded President Joe Biden’s advice, and now Biden is making him pay a price. But the U.S. seems to have lost the ability to pressure Israel.
Bassam El Hachem, executive committee member of Independents for Lebanon, presented a Lebanese perspective that behind Iran, you have powers such as Russia and China, and behind Israel you have the United States. Following the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, there was intensive media manipulation with false tales of mass rapes and killing of children. He estimated that there have been 150,000 victims of Israel’s reprisals, but after one year, they have achieved none of their goals. In both Gaza and Lebanon, they are simply carrying out an extermination war under the guise of a military operation. Western leaders rushed to Israel to embrace Netanyahu, permitting him to carry out all sorts of atrocities, while repeating that Israel has the right to defend itself.
El Hachem disagreed on one point with Ritter: The U.S. is not incapable of restraining Israel, they are complicit. In 1993 an historic agreement was signed, the Oslo Accords, including the agreement for a Palestinian state. Two years later, on Nov. 4, 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, and the main culprit was Netanyahu. Last July the Knesset declared the Palestinian state to be null and void, and then passed the “Nation-State” law, formalizing apartheid. They intend to expel Palestinians into Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. All of these elements were in the background to the Oct. 7, 2023 attack.
Layla Elabed, co-founder and co-director of the Uncommitted National Movement, described her role as a leader of the “Listen to Michigan” project. In Michigan they won over 10% of the primary vote, not just from Arab-American or Muslim-American voters. It spread to Minnesota, Washington and Wisconsin. They had 30 anti-war delegates to the Democratic National Convention. However, the Harris campaign has signaled that they are willing to lose the state of Michigan and sacrifice the youth vote, in order to continue supporting Israeli genocide. Nonetheless, Elabed’s group has made a political assessment that the best way to influence policy is to oppose Trump and permit Harris to take the White House, without endorsing Harris.
Discussion
During the discussion period, Zepp-LaRouche warned against fixating on the U.S. elections, saying that “we have to completely change the entire collective West.”
Independent Congressional candidate in the Bronx Jose Vega (CD15) urged participants to carry out public interventions like the ones he and his colleagues have done. He asked, how can individuals be confident that it will make a difference? Zepp-LaRouche responded with a distich from German poet Friedrich Schiller, “Always strive for completion, and if you can’t be complete in yourself, become part of something that is complete.” She said that the IPC provides the vehicle required: “It’s better that people have sleepless nights and start to think.”
One participant brought up again the problem of the UN being paralyzed by the veto power of the permanent UN Security Council members. Zepp-LaRouche said that we need to mobilize the citizenry in every nation. A number of participants described their efforts to do this. One man from a pro-Palestine organization in Costa Rica read a proclamation from his group, comparing the genocide in Gaza to the Holocaust. A representative of Veterans For Peace read a letter issued by his organization which calls for an investigation of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken for lying to Congress and other misdeeds.
In conclusion, Helga Zepp-LaRouche asserted that Scott Ritter’s assessment is either 100% correct or in the upper 90% range, and agreed with moderator Dennis Speed that the Nov. 5 U.S. election will not be important if we are all dead by then. Therefore, we must continue to mobilize with the IPC.
