The 163rd consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) opened with remarks by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute founder and IPC initiator. She observed that for the 6th day in a row, the United States has massively bombed Iran, targeting civilian infrastructure. Iran has responded by attacking U.S. bases and has asked the Houthis in Yemen to target the Bab al-Mandeb Strait on the Red Sea, another important chokepoint in addition to the Strait of Hormuz. This can “plunge the world into a depression, a hunger catastrophe, an energy crisis,” as early as August, Zepp-LaRouche warned.
In Europe, “Ukrainians have started to massively target Russian facilities in the Black Sea, and in retaliation Russia has begun to hit ports in the Odessa region—that massively affects grain, oil and fertilizer” Zepp-LaRouche said, noting that this poses a double-edged threat to world food supplies, since Russia alone supplies over 10% of global grain exports. On the other side, she said, you have the insane decision by Germany to purchase U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles and station them on German soil—we are facing a resumption of the medium-range nuclear missile crisis from the 1980s.
In the United States, an increasingly delirious U.S. President Donald Trump went on national TV to charge that 220 million files on U.S. voters were stolen by China in 2020.
Zepp-LaRouche tempered her presentation with some favorable developments. She reported that Russia, China and the Vatican are working to curtail abuses of artificial intelligence (AI). Russia and China have agreed to form for this purpose the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, to be headquartered in Shanghai. Similarly, at the summer residence of Pope Leo XIV in the city of Castel Gandolfo, Italy, in a 3-day meeting, 30 Nobel Prize laureates and top experts agreed upon the Rome Declaration on Nuclear Weapons and AI. Meanwhile, in the United States, 104 Congressmen voted to de-fund Israel. This was not sufficient to pass the amendment, but it was nonetheless significant, marking the first time that a substantial number of Congressmen defied the wishes of the Israel lobby.
Jack Gilroy is a regular IPC participant, representing Veterans for Peace, Pax Christi–Upstate New York, and Pax Christi International. He gave an updated report on the initiative to emulate the diplomacy of Pope John XXIII during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when Pope John served as an intermediary between U.S. President John Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and helped to defuse a situation where the world was on a hair-trigger for nuclear war.
Joe Maxwell is the former Lt. Gov. of Missouri; a lawyer; a retired First Sergeant and 20-year veteran in the Missouri National Guard; Cofounder of Farm Action; and current President of the Farm Action Fund. He commended the Schiller Institute and the IPC for 163 weeks of leadership. He went on to present an exhaustive report on the impact that American farmers and rural communities are facing because of the wars that were initiated in Ukraine and Iran, coming on top of an already difficult situation for independent family farms. The United States is losing, on average, 63 farms a day (small, and middle-sized)—as American families are struggling to afford food. Four companies control 85% of the cattle processing in the U.S. Maxwell went on to present similar statistics for other commodities. Farmers in the U.S. are also being squeezed on the input side; fertilizer prices have doubled, and diesel fuel has gone up 40%. U.S. farmers will lose $31 billion this year, between the monopolistic policies of international agribusiness and the wars.
U.S. independent presidential candidate Diane Sare listed the chokepoints that imperil the world economy: the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait on the Red Sea, the “Epstein class” takeover of Albania on the Adriatic Sea, and Ukraine’s attacks on Russian shipping routes in the Black Sea. She lamented that these threats were worsening while the United States is being led by a “witless, malignant narcissist in the White House.” The world is still coasting on oil that was in transit before Hormuz was closed, so there is a delayed reaction to the closure of the strait, but soon the full impact will be felt.
Sare reported that a critical flank is the battle around the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in the Congress. Representatives Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khana (D-CA) have an amendment to strip the now-notorious section 219 from the NDAA, the section which effectively merges the military and intelligence functions of the United States with those of Israel. The move to strike it is an action which Sare supports (see her statement. She reported on how Congressman Adam Smith (D-WA) changed his vote on another amendment, Amendment #8, also introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie, to strip $3.3 billion in U.S. military aid to Israel from the 2027 State Department appropriations bill. This is proof in principle that Congress can change, in order to respond to the wishes of their constituents.
Zepp-LaRouche posed a question to Maxwell: what are the delayed effects of fertilizer shortages? He responded by saying that if you cut off nitrogen fertilizer, it takes about a year for the impact of higher prices and shortages to be felt. The result is less food, and mass hunger. Co-moderator Dennis Speed followed up, by suggesting that the IPC should explore the relationship between attacks on agriculture and the migrant crisis, because food shortages compel people to move in search of food in order to survive. Zepp-LaRouche agreed that the denial of development will cause the migrant crisis to explode.
“The United States is Depleting Itself”
Dennis Speed introduced frequent IPC participant Larry Johnson, who signed on to the meeting after finishing another commitment. Johnson is a former CIA intelligence official and a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). Johnson noted that Iran had lived through six days of continuous bombing since he had spoken at the last IPC meeting one week ago. Contrary to the frequent, hysterical proclamations of triumph coming from the Trump administration, “Iran holds the strategic edge in this battle,” Johnson said. He painted a devastating picture of the attrition in U.S. military capabilities under the conditions of the war with Iran: at the rate in which missiles are being consumed, Lockheed Martin made only 7 days’ worth of missiles over the past year. We are running out of ordnance. “The United States is engaged in self-attrition,” Johnson said. “All Iran has to do is hammer U.S. bases every day with ballistic missiles… the United States is being effectively driven from the Persian Gulf.” After the United States denied China access to its Global Positioning System in the 90s, China created an independent BeiDou Navigation Satellite System which Iran is now accessing. “The United States is depleting itself.” The U.S. has caused global shortages of diesel and aviation fuel, which inevitably affects our military capabilities.
Discussion
Zepp-LaRouche asked Johnson whether there are people in the Pentagon that understand the consequences of these policies and who can respond intelligently. Johnson answered that they have underestimated Iran’s resolve. Before long, Trump will be forced to make major concessions and find some way to sell them to his base in a face-saving way, claiming that he is magnanimously responding to Iranian pleas for mercy. Meanwhile, the U.S. is systematically relocating its forces out of the region, to move them out of range of Iranian missiles.
In response to a question about the 41-43 million persons who attended the funeral of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Zepp-LaRouche called it the largest demonstration in world history, and an assertion of “thousands of years of identity of a civilization.”
