Strong and institutional voices are speaking out to end the warfare, in particular around Iran and Ukraine, even as warring exchanges flared up today in the Israel-U.S. war on Iran and in Europe, the EU today announced its 21st proposed package of economic warfare sanctions against Russia and “third party” countries.
Among the calls for deliberate action for peace, Pope Leo XIV made a ringing statement to the Parliament of Spain June 8, using the expression that peace must be made “a truly moral imperative,” and that in all respects “human coexistence must be made human.” Chinese representatives are speaking out in multiple venues for China’s ‘Global Governance Initiative,” with a similar guiding sentiment for the common good to prevail in international affairs.
Today this was reiterated at the Chinese Foreign Ministry briefing by spokesperson Lin Jian, who said, “The three-months-long U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict has hit hard countries in the Gulf and wider Middle East region. Facts have proven that military means provide no solution…. Regional countries’ sovereignty, security and territorial integrity should be respected and upheld….” Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum June 5, Chinese Vice President Han Zheng promoted the concept of the Global Governance Initiative. This was also put forward in late May by the Chinese head of delegation at the Shangri-La Dialogue on military policy in Singapore. A conference of the Group of Friends of Global Governance is planned for China in the Fall, after its New York meeting May 28.
The dialogue platforms provided by the Schiller Institute, the International Peace Coalition, and related efforts in recent times are indispensable to this peace process. See the video archiveof the May 30-31 conference in Berlin held by the Schiller Institute, “The End of 500 Years of Colonialism–For a Dialogue of Civilizations: The urgency of a New Global Security and Development Achitecture.”
Today’s warfare began in Lebanon, with Israel bombing at several locations, then announcing an order for residents of the Christian quarter in the historic city of Tyre to immediately evacuate. Streams of desperate people took to the highway north. Whereupon, the IDF started air strikes. The Lebanese Health Minister and several others were killed, and dozens injured. Once again, whatever restraint U.S. President Trump may have harshly, occasionally told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to follow recently, is nowhere. Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. Danny Danon laconically commented that, “there are a few differences to be settled,” between the United States and Israel.
As of this writing, U.S. CentCom reports that it is carrying out retaliatory strikes against Iran, after earlier today, a U.S. Army Apache helicopter was downed in the Sea of Oman. The two crewmen were successfully rescued by a U.S. Navy unmanned surface boat, it is reported. President Trump issued several responses, saying that there would of necessity be a U.S. military response—now underway—while also, later, saying that the pilot and crewman being all right made it a lesser matter. It is reported that Iran has also launched strikes at U.S. military targets in the region.
This kind of deadly back-and-forth cannot continue as such. The situation will flare out of control into world war, even nuclear, or into chaos disintegrating into mass breakdown. The process must be ended with the earliest comprehensive security framework in the region, and a new world economic and security architecture. To make this moral imperative a reality, there can be no stance of watching and waiting, “Let’s see how it goes.”
In the United States, where the majority public sentiment is clearly to stop the foreign war madness, it is a tall order to get people to activate against the war-machine government officeholders. Today The LaRouche Organization issued a statement for mass circulation, “America at 250: Will We Now, As We Once Did, Come to the Aid of Our Country?” It concludes, “No imperial wars! No searching for monsters to conquer! [The admonition of President John Quincy Adams.] We are called in this moment of impending world war, to declare independence from 500 years of colonialism, and stand up for the dignity of humanity, as was done July 4, 1776.”
In Europe, it is likewise a tall order to move the population to reject the blatant madness of those, without popular mandate, who still occupy high office, and are shutting down national economies in the name of making war readiness against Russia. Today’s meeting in Brussels was a farce of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proclaiming that the EU’s “consistency is paying off” by having 20 successive packages of sanctions and economic bans against Russia.
Meantime, the economic shock waves keep coming worldwide from the three months of the constriction of the Strait of Hormuz. There are disruptions of all kinds. In the U.S. itself today, it was announced that the Federal Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has been depleted to its lowest level in more than 40 years.
The World Food Program this week released a follow-up report to its recent projection that 45 million people will be deprived of getting enough food, because of economic disruption from the Iran War. The WFP zeroed in on how many millions of that number are in Afghanistan, in Somalia, and in Sri Lanka.
The International Peace Coalition next meets June 12, for the 156th consecutive [weekly meeting]( https://schillerinstitute.nationbuilder.com/ipc_meeting) since its founding.
