Events of the past 48 hours have shown that the Trump administration is reaching a breaking point when it comes to its policy in Iran. President Trump on Aug. 1 called off what he had claimed would be a massive strike on Iran, saying that Iran was ready to talk and that negotiations would ensue on Monday. The only problem is that Iran didn’t seem to have gotten the memo. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Monday that Iran is not negotiating with the U.S. but Oman, and further, that any agreement reached with the latter is unlikely to lead to the reopening of the strait until the U.S. ends its aggressive actions and naval blockade against Iran. Apparently upset by this news, Trump flew into a temper tantrum later on Monday, posting on social media that the “Iranian leadership is incredibly duplicitous!”
All the while, diplomatic activity throughout the region and beyond has been going on non-stop over the recent days in an attempt to stave off a further escalation. Clearly the United States has been left entirely outside of the ongoing diplomatic processes being conducted, and is obviously recognized as incapable by all regional parties.
Further indicating this situation, CNN reported that a senior intelligence official in CENTCOM has been soliciting “new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran.” Another official confirmed this, admitting that the administration is “running out of conventional options.”
It is clear that the Iran war is reaching a point of exhaustion, Helga Zepp-LaRouche told associates in a discussion on Monday, and therefore it represents a state of heightened tension. “A phase change has to occur one way or another, because the existing trajectory is coming to an end”: Either Trump will pack up and leave the region, as many experts have advised him to do, or he will launch a new phase of escalation. This is the dynamic of desperation driving the threat of a new world war, and must be taken extremely seriously.
A similar situation exists with regard to Ukraine, where NATO-enabled strikes into Russia have been causing more damage—including to civilian infrastructure and commercial enterprises—similarly bringing this situation to a new and more dangerous phase.
Zepp-LaRouche emphasized the importance of EIR’s July 31 Roundtable in pointing the way out given this global situation: “Now, how that change will come, other than all of a sudden reason and diplomacy, which is not very likely. The only other approach we have defined in our IPC-EIR Roundtable meeting on Friday, which I think defined very clearly where we have to orient to, and that would be to immediately start to address the refugee crisis in a human way, which would be economic development, joining hands among the Western nations and the BRICS, to jointly say we will develop Africa, the Middle East, the rest of Asia which needs it, and Latin America. And also the poor areas of Europe and the United States, because there are areas which are bordering on Third World conditions. So, we just stop this whole armament insanity, which is a complete destruction of wealth and economic assets, and we go for joint development. Now, that does require a lot more pushing, but it’s not impossible given the fact that that does represent the interests of the Global Majority.”
