The Lead
Nuclear Armageddon, or a New Renaissance?
by Megan Dobrodt (EIRNS) — Mar. 04, 2026
During a press conference on Wednesday, March 4, the puff-chested and lunkheaded Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth brutally bragged, “America is winning decisively, devastatingly, and without mercy, in the war against Iran…. This was never meant to be a fair fight. And it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”
Shocking, brutal, and disconcerting as the statement is, it is unfortunately not surprising, coming from one such as Hegseth, who is but a low-level, fundamentally flawed embodiment of a decades-long degeneration of culture made manifest in the “Epstein Class,” an establishment that uses human beings up to fulfill their own perverse desires—in policymaking as much as in personal pleasure.
Particularly concerning are reports coming from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which has been inundated with complaints from non-commissioned officers since the start of the operation against Iran on Feb. 28 which all have “one damn thing in freaking common,” charges MRFF head Mikey Weinstein:
“Our MRFF clients report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new ‘Biblically-sanctioned’ war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian ‘End Times’ as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation,” Weinstein said. “Many of their commanders,” he added, “are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be, zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end-of-the-world eschatology.”
No wonder the fundamentalist Hegseth merely muttered, “All I can say is that we’re investigating that,” when asked about the bombing of a girls’ school in southern Iran, which reportedly killed upwards of 150 children on Feb. 28.
In her March 4 webcast, Helga Zepp-LaRouche issued a stark warning: “If this kind of religious fundamentalism, which is prevalent among some of the American Christian religious right, and also among some of the Zionist element, if that is ruling, then there is no more rationality.… If you have religious warfare on that level, including the potential of nuclear weapons, I think people better take this seriously.”
Faced with such fervid irrationality, which threatens the existence of civilization, what is to be done?
“When you are confronted with such unbelievable atrocities, there are two possible reactions,” Helga Zepp-LaRouche wrote in the just-released EIR report, “The Empire Has No Clothes! The End of Oligarchy, Not Just Epstein”. “One is to react with despair and eventually adapt to a society which is no longer human, or you say ‘enough is enough, there is a limit to the tyrant’s power,’ and determine to create a new worldwide renaissance.”
The second option is truly the only choice we have. Though some witless and/or servile world leaders praise the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, many other nations around the world are insisting that international law be upheld and the conflict be brought to a swift end. “No country has the right to dominate international affairs, dictate the destiny of other countries, or monopolize development advantages, let alone impose whatever it wishes on the world,” said Lou Qinjian, spokesman of the Chinese National People’s Congress, which opened in Beijing on March 4. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was even more direct: “Russia has strongly condemned the latest dangerous adventure by the American-Israeli tandem against the Islamic Republic…. There’s no doubt that the imaginary Iranian threat was merely a pretext for implementing a long-cherished plan to violently overthrow the constitutional order in a sovereign UN member state unpopular with Washington and Tel Aviv, and the renewed negotiation process was a cover-up…. We categorically and resolutely advocate an immediate cessation of hostilities by all sides.”
In the wake of the growing danger of nuclear war which accompanies this and other escalating conflicts, Helga Zepp-LaRouche has repeatedly called for governments to convene a conference to establish a new security and development architecture which takes into account the interests of every single nation. Such an urgent shift in paradigm, which was discussed at length at a March 2 EIR Emergency Roundtable, must reflect the scientifically true—and not fundamentalist degenerate—nature of human beings: That of a creative being whose power of discovery drives the development of the universe as a whole.
If we do this, we can bring about a worldwide renaissance. With the win-win cooperation already burgeoning in the Global South, largely driven by China’s Belt and Road Initiative and similar agreements, and the leadership and astuteness of statesmen like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, the objective conditions for achieving this are there; the question is whether we, as a species, will rise to the occasion, for the sake of the billions and trillions of human beings who are potentially to come.
Contents
Strategic War Danger
- Military Commanders Want To Make Iran War Bloody for Armageddon (↓)
- Hegseth on Crusade: 'America Is Winning Decisively ... and Without Mercy' (↓)
- Zakharova Castigates U.S. Operation in Attempted Regime Change In Iran (↓)
- Chinese Spokesman Reiterates Importance of U.S.-China Relationship (↓)
- The Telegraph Editor: Nothing Remains of U.S.-U.K. ‘Special Relationship’ (↓)
- Ukrainian Naval Drone Attacks Russian Gas Carrier (↓)
- Little Marco Rubio Squirms in Press Conference on Iran (↓)
Collapsing Imperial System
New World Paradigm
U.S. and Canada
- Trump Prepares a ‘Summit’ with Latin American Leaders (↓)
- Carney Pursues Davos ‘Middle Powers’ Pitch in Australia and Supports Iran War (↓)
Harley Schlanger Update
Watch The Daily Update with Harley Schlanger, a short video update available every weekday morning from The LaRouche Organization.
