The Lead
Only a Change in Axioms Can Stop the War
by Megan Dobrodt (EIRNS) — Apr. 21, 2026
The world hangs in a state of suspense. Late in the afternoon on April 21, just hours away from the expiration of the two-week ceasefire between Iran and the U.S., and due largely to diplomatic efforts from Pakistan, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he would extend the ceasefire until the Iranian side produced a unified proposal and discussions could take place. At the moment, a time has not yet been set for negotiations between the two sides to resume; given that the U.S. version of the ceasefire includes a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and other actions the Iranians see as a violation, it is unclear if the Iranians will trust the U.S. for further talks. Speaker of the Iranian Parliament and head of Iran’s negotiating team Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote on X on Monday, April 20, “We do not accept negotiations under the shadow of threats, and in the past two weeks, we have prepared to reveal new cards on the battlefield.”
The situation—in Southwest Asia and beyond—is on the razor’s edge. Assuming the ceasefire (such as it is) holds, the situation may not blow up tomorrow, but unless something fundamental changes, it will blow up, and no matter what Trump and his controllers assert, the West won’t come out the winner.
Reports of Trump’s rapidly declining mental health are coming from many quarters, only supported by the ample and alarming evidence of the President’s own posts and comments, including his obsessive attack on Pope Leo XIV. However, equally insane and dangerous is the lying narrative of the mainstream media, still believed by far too many in the West, that Iran is the embodiment of evil which must be destroyed and that the democracy-loving West is standing strong against despicable and isolated autocracies like Russia and China.
The reality is quite the opposite. The conditions of physical economic breakdown in the West are coming to a head, only exacerbated by the growing fuel and fertilizer shortages brought on by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz since the U.S.-Israeli attacks. The German economy, once the industrial powerhouse of Europe, is hemorrhaging, with the largest industrial firms, the latest being Bosch and Volkswagen, announcing plans to cut tens of thousands of jobs—just the tip of the iceberg. In the United States, programs like SNAP and Medicaid are being gutted in order to “save money,” with millions projected to lose essential access to food and healthcare, an infinitely more expensive outcome.
Are Western governments addressing this? Far from it! Not only is the U.S. spending billions of dollars to blow up civilizations across the world rather than rebuild its agro-industrial productive capacity, but Europe is likewise in a delusional rearmament mobilization. On Monday, April 20, French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish President Donald Tusk met to discuss closer defense cooperation, including nuclear deterrence, between the two countries. “Our cooperation, whether in the nuclear domain or in joint exercises is a cooperation that knows no bounds,” Tusk said. Russia, at which this nuclear proliferation is aimed, is not amused. “This seems like further proof of Europe’s inclination toward militarization and nuclearization,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov observed. “This is not something that contributes to stability and predictability on the European continent.” Indeed, further dismantling of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, as Russia, China, and others have noted, makes the entire human species less secure.
What the adults in the room, those thinking of how to craft a future for humankind, clearly see is that the only way out of the current crisis is to fundamentally change the axioms underlying relations between nations. That is why in November 2022 Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche put out a call for a new international security and development architecture, opening her “Ten Principles” discussion document: “The new paradigm which will be characteristic of the new epoch, and towards which the new global security and development architecture must be directed, therefore, must eliminate the concept of oligarchism for good, and proceed to organize the political order in such a way, that the true character of humanity as the creative species can be realized.”
Zepp-LaRouche’s call, the urgency of which has only grown since it was first released, has been paralleled in the interim by similar initiatives from both Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping toward a new, inclusive security architecture for the world.
The question now before us is how to take this world that is teetering on the edge and seemingly driven in a chaotic mode, and move it in the direction of reason and goodness. To that end, Zepp-LaRouche has called on people around the world to mobilize. The International Peace Coalition, co-founded by Zepp-LaRouche, will be holding its 151st meeting, “Mobilize Forces To Intervene in a ‘Break-Out of Reason,” on Friday, April 24th. Build that meeting to be a breakout of the international peace movement against this lurch toward nuclear war. Mobilize to demand that the U.S. Congress end the funding for the Iran war, as they once did in 1973 for the Vietnam War. On April 20, a group of 150 veterans occupied the Cannon House Office Building demanding just that.
“The basic assumption for the new paradigm is that man is fundamentally good and capable to infinitely perfect the creativity of his mind and the beauty of his soul,” Zepp-LaRouche declares in her “Ten Principles” document, “and being the most advanced geological force in the universe, which proves that the lawfulness of the mind and that of the physical universe are in correspondence and cohesion, and that all evil is the result of a lack of development, and therefore can be overcome.
“A new world economic order is emerging, involving the vast majority of the countries of the Global South. The European nations and the U.S. must not fight this effort, but by joining hands with the developing countries, cooperate to shape the next epoch of the development of the human species to become a renaissance of the highest and most noble expressions of creativity!”
Do you value your children’s, your grandchildren’s, future? Join that effort and mobilize.
Contents
Strategic War Danger
- Trump Agrees To Extend Iran Ceasefire (↓)
- Iranians Still Skeptical (↓)
- Senior Russian Diplomat Keeps Spotlight on U.S. and Strategic Instability (↓)
- China and NPT Review Conference (↓)
- Polish, French Leaders Meet To Discuss Expanded Defense Cooperation To Include Nuclear (↓)
New World Paradigm
U.S. and Canada
Collapsing Imperial System
Harley Schlanger Update
Watch The Daily Update with Harley Schlanger, a short video update available every weekday morning from The LaRouche Organization.
