The Lead
Not the Deluge, But the Oasis
by Dennis Speed (EIRNS) — May. 25, 2026
Before the world descends into a maelstrom of total war, from which human civilization itself may not emerge, a different path must needs be taken. This Tuesday, May 26, the United Nations will convene the session, “Upholding the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter and Strengthening the UN-Centered International System.” sponsored by the United Nations Security Council’s rotating Chairman, the People’s Republic of China. For the past week, LaRouche forces, and the International Peace Coalition (IPC), among others, have circulated, including at the UN itself, a proposal “To the Governments of the United Nations: A Policy To Bring Peace and Development to Southwest Asia.”
The statement reflects, in part the results of deliberations at the May 15 Executive Intelligence Review Roundtable, “The Iran War and the ‘Controlled Disintegration’ of the World Economy.” Participating were Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche; former Prime Minister of Türkiye Ahmet Davutoğlu; Iranian Ambassador to Mexico Abolfazl Pasandideh; and former UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine Richard Falk, among others. In addition to a four-point proposal for advancing the cause of peace in Southwest Asia proposed at the EIR roundtable by Professor Davutoğlu, Zepp-LaRouche suggested an expansion of his proposals with “An integrated ‘Extended Oasis Plan,’ in which a program for reversing the desertification of Southwest Asia, modelled on China’s transformation of Xinjiang province and its northwest deserts, is combined with the extension of development corridors throughout Southwest Asia.”
That the world conversation on a new security and development architecture needs to immediately upshift to this solution concept could not be more evident, when the events of the past weekend are seen from the standpoint of their “existential threat” nature, rather than as “the latest news.” The Russian Defense Ministry’s website makes it clear that the retaliatory strike conducted on May 29 in response to the NATO/Ukrainian multiple drone assault on the vocational school at Starobelksk in Lugansk used Oreshnik missiles. It must be remembered, however, that, apart from whatever damage is reported to Ukraine in the next hours and days, the Oreshnik is a nuclear-capable missile. Apart from the fact that there is nothing in the NATO arsenal that can stop it, its potential “non-conventional” use is also intended to be understood “by those that have eyes to see and ears to hear.”
But what about the blind, the deaf, and the really, really dumb, like the American “Lego Secretary of War?” (Stanley Kubrick’s “Col. Jack D. Ripper” is a model of sobriety, restraint and composure in comparison to Pete Hegseth.) It does not, and probably cannot occur to the “Epstein leadership class” of NATO, nor to those educated in the trans-Atlantic institutions of higher learning also run by the Epstein class, that their various “successful enterprises” of the past eight decades, in finance, “technocracy,” and most emphatically in the field of geopolitics, have produced a societal culture which is no longer morally fit to survive. It cannot conceive its own condition, and therefore, cannot perceive the clear and present danger of its own, even imminent thermonuclear extinction.
The roots of this rot are deeper still. In 1994, economist Lyndon LaRouche observed:
“Since no later than 1905, despite some elements of progress, even some admirable ones, the overall pattern of this century has been one of global decay of civilization through two ruinous world wars. Over the period since the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, there came a worse, presently ongoing collapse, into a neo-Malthusian ‘New Dark Age,’ into a ‘New Ager’s post-industrial Utopia.’ In the United States, compare the 63 years that have now passed since the JFK assassination, with the 63 years before it—1900 to 1963. Compare American progress in life expectancy, material standard of life, productivity in mining, manufacturing and agriculture, family formation, internal social progress, world prestige, and fundamental scientific advance, between 1900 and 1963, and 1963 and 2026. America needs its own ‘Oasis Plan.’”
That is the case of the U.S. What about the NATO nations, particularly Western Europe? Is there one nation which does not have negative population growth? Is the outcry about “the disappearance of Western civilization” because of “the invasion of Islam” in the U.K. and other areas, besides its obvious racialist overtones, merely a cover for the hatred of the human race that has resulted from King Charles and the Club Of Rome pushing negative population growth for 60 years? From a demographic standpoint—whether or not the society has a future, based on the growth of its population, and an improvement in its living standards—nearly all the states of NATO are failed states. The killing of children, as seen in the Israeli policy in Gaza, the Ukrainian attack in Lugansk, the broader self-immolation in the “war to the last Ukrainian” and perhaps the darker “night island entertainments” of the “Epstein Class,” are an expression of this underlying reality. Europe, too, needs an “Oasis Plan.”
Those who are urging that Russia use all military means to “decapitate” Ukraine, as Israel attempted to do with Iran, or to take other measures “that I would take, if I were head of Russia,” might reflect as to why they are, precisely because of that very “rush to judgment,” disqualified to be in charge of the world’s most powerful thermonuclear arsenal, particularly at this moment in current history. The whole human race must be taken into account by a leader that has the power to eliminate most, if not all of human and other forms of life, through a mistake. That same leader has the power to encourage the deployment of advanced technologies to rebuild the Earth, and advance humanity to other worlds. Civilization in leadership is not a luxury, but a requirement.
A barbaric society in possession of thermonuclear weapons will eventually cause those weapons to be used. Any idea of abdication of responsibility to machines to make humanity’s decisions, of a society “all watched over by machines of loving grace,” is even more certain to end the existence of humanity. Therefore, the only kind of societies the world can now afford are those capable of uniting the human race and educating the emotions of the world’s people to the idea that it is only in the benefit of the other that our own survival is assured.
The International Peace Coalition will reach a milestone this week. It will hold its 156th consecutive meeting—a meeting every week for three years straight. The “world citizens diplomacy” that is being forged in those meetings through the practice of Socratic dialogue is the means for the education of the emotions required to advance the practice of “peace through development” as the only sure way to ascend our nations from the maelstrom of total war.
There is a coincidence of opposites at work here—"that I can never be all that I can be, unless you are all that you can be,” as Martin Luther King once said. “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” The “oasis” of the “extended Oasis Plan,” which the United Nations should be encouraged this week, by all, to discuss, is the wellspring of a grounded optimism that holds the promise of a future greater than what might appear to be humanity’s tragic destiny. Be impractical—choose the benefit of the other.
Contents
New World Paradigm
- China, Pakistan Prepare for Phase 2 of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (↓)
- Putin and Xi Inaugurate Russia-China Years of Education With Long-Term View (↓)
- New Hungarian Government Reinstates Ban on Ukrainian Food Imports (↓)
- Russian Wheat Exports to Africa Surged During 2025 (↓)
Strategic War Danger
- Russia Retaliates (↓)
- NPT Review Conference Ends Without Consensus Document (↓)
- German Military Analyst: 'NATO Knows That Eastern Expansion Is the Reddest of Red Lines' (↓)
- Letter to the Editor: ‘Inches from Catastrophe, Let's Stop NATO's Ukraine War Now!’ (↓)
- Czech President Urges NATO To 'Show Its Teeth' To Russia (↓)
Collapsing Imperial System
Science and Technology
Harley Schlanger Update
Watch The Daily Update with Harley Schlanger, a short video update available every weekday morning from The LaRouche Organization.
