“This is really the moral test of humanity,” Helga Zepp-LaRouche warned in her webcast of March 25. “Can we, in the face of the danger of a crisis which potentially can lead to World War III, can we change course before it is too late?”
The urgency of her remarks was echoed in a letter issued by an Argentina-based policy group, which sent their statement along with Zepp-LaRouche’s recent [open letter to Pope Leo XIV]() to all of the Catholic Bishops in Argentina. The group’s letter concludes by calling on people of the world to take action and “say with one voice: No to war in the Persian Gulf. Yes to life, sovereignty, and peace…. In solidarity with all the voices of humanity calling out for reason: Let the escalation of war cease; let diplomacy and the will of the people prevail!”
This issue of diplomacy—which, in the age of nuclear weapons, must be the pathway to solve conflicts—is of the utmost urgency to all sane nations and leaders. Whereas lunkheaded beastman Pete Hegseth declared at an Oval Office press conference on Wednesday, “we negotiate with bombs,” more sane government officials around the world have been working to create the possibility of an early end to the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke on Monday with the foreign ministers of Iran and Egypt, and on Tuesday reiterated Russia’s proposal for a Concept for Collective Security in the Persian Gulf. “The path of negotiations, unity, and alignment of interests, rather than the attempts to force any country (especially the Islamic Republic of Iran) into following diktat imposed from abroad, serves the interests of this vital region of the world,” [the diplomat said]( https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/2088330/).
Zepp-LaRouche stressed the importance of finding a pathway forward that breaks from the logic of geopolitics and might-makes-right lawlessness: “If you would give up on the possibility of diplomacy and negotiation, you could say goodbye to the entire human species,” she warned. “If [the Iran] conflict continues in any way, it may lead to a complete depression of the world economy. In the worst case, if the threats of bombing each other’s nuclear facilities,…you may have massive radiation fall out in the region, and if this continues anymore, you may have the use of nuclear weapons leading to a global nuclear war…. We should tell people this is a moment to reflect and go back to diplomacy, go back to solving all conflicts through dialogue. Because otherwise, we are in the danger of ending civilization by being completely crazy and blowing the world up.”
Zepp-LaRouche’s warning is extremely timely: On the evening of March 24, US–Israeli strikes hit the premises of the Bushehr Nuclear Power plant—for the second time since the conflict began—and the disastrous issue of deploying US ground troops into the conflict still hangs ominously in the air.
Reports are that the US, through Pakistan, has delivered to Iran a list of 15 conditions to be met to end the war, and that Tehran has transmitted its own list of demands to the US side. If media reports are to be believed, both lists contain demands that the other side has categorically dismissed, though White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that rumors that Iran has rejected the US draft are untrue.
What is really required, if diplomatic efforts are to succeed, is a solution concept that creates a new potential, a way forward to the mutual benefit of all involved. Lyndon LaRouche’s proposal for the Oasis Plan, revived in the recent period by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, can serve as the concrete basis for win-win economic development that will not merely rebuild a region of the world that has suffered as a geopolitical playground for more than a century, but allow it to serve as a developed, modern keystone between Asia, Africa, and Europe.
“That approach, economic development, peace through development, that must be put on the table,” Zepp-LaRouche said. “And we are trying right now to say that is the voice of reason where all countries could participate in rebuilding this region…. Peace through development is the only way we can get out of this crisis.”
