Looking at the sweep of history, one sees that when empires go down, the trigger is often a failed military operation—an assault, a siege, a war. This observation was made today by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and leader of the Schiller Institute, to draw out the import of some of today’s leading current events and set the tasks for what must follow the defeat of oligarchism and empire per se.
One proviso: when we are “in the middle of events,” we do not often see them as patterns of the larger picture. But the picture is, empires don’t last. We are now in the period where “the empire”—referring to the extended, financial-military/Epstein cross-borders complex—is attempting to persist—and it is lethal—but it is in trouble.
Look at the Greater Israel empire drive on multiple military fronts; against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, against Syria, Iran, and so on. Israel is overstretched in all directions, causing death and destruction.
Look at the profound message from Iran, rejecting imperial assault. Despite the U.S.-Israeli rounds of warfare, and assassinations of leaders, the people of Iran stand firm for their nation, culture and millennial-long civilization. Up to 20 million people were in processions today commemorating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed, along with family members, by Israeli-U.S. airstrikes.
Zepp-LaRouche commented, “when you’re in the middle of history, it’s very difficult to give it always a definite name, but what you can say is, this is definitely the period where the empire, meaning now not any particular empire, but meaning the oligarchical system, is definitely overstretching itself because these establishments just don’t want to register that to fight wars to achieve your aim is a losing proposition.
“Sometimes it may take decades before that becomes clear, but when has the United States won the last war? Not in Vietnam, not in Afghanistan, not in Iraq, not in Syria, not in Libya, not in Ukraine, and definitely not in Iran. So, rather than realizing that that method of trying to consolidate a world hegemonic position is not successful, they refuse to learn from China, who is not using any weapon, but just offering economic development, and therefore making friends all over the place.
“So, why are these elites not smart enough to recognize that the only way they could compete in the systemic competition with China would be to do likewise and try to make friends by developing these countries? But obviously, given the fact that all of these people have put their fortune into making profit with the war industry, their thinking is blocked to think in this direction….”
The task in this situation, for all friends of humanity, is to fill the void for morality and policy, as more and more people and nations reject empire. In short, we must mobilize for all aspects of the core concept that development is the name for peace.
On July 31, this news service and the International Peace Coalition will co-host a roundtable for world dialogue on emergency and long-term perspectives to intervene in the world crisis, on behalf of development and peace. With a world development drive, there are no wars, and no migrant “problem.”
Note an especially dreadful update today, resulting from Washington’s record of empire: the entire electric power system collapsed in Cuba, affecting its total population of over 10 million. This is the direct result of U.S. economic warfare for nearly seven decades against the country. The UN General Assembly will meet in New York on this emergency July 7, in morning and afternoon sessions titled, “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.”
The same day, in the domain of empire, the annual NATO Summit takes place in Turkiye, convening leaders of its 32 member states, to discuss more warfare and military-financial-complex looting.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche summed up a perspective for action: “I think the task for us is very clear. It’s a mission impossible to get the world off the edge of the abyss, and re-install the principles of the American Revolution in the United States; and to create a John Quincy Adams foreign policy for the United States, and a new security and development architecture for the rest of the world.”
