by EIR staffJune 20–Opening the 107th meeting of the International Peace Coalition, Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche reviewed the presently dire strategic situation, saying that “the immediate danger would be if the United States were to be drawn into the bombing of Iran.” She said that attempting to destroy Iran’s underground facility would be unlikely to succeed without resorting to the use of nuclear bombs. The neocons’ 1996 “Clean Break” policy is in play, which was designed to counter the 1993-95 Oslo Accords. “The British have a very particular interest to keep this conflict going… That should remind us that the immediate target of this operation was not just what happens in the Middle East… Regime change in the region is not the only aim.” The strategic aims include destruction throughout the region, and confrontation with the Russia, China and Global South development drive which intends to end 500 years of colonial looting.
Looking at the situation in the U.S., she said that half of the MAGA base feels betrayed, because Trump had promised an end to the neocon war policy. When Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard reported earlier this year that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, Trump dismissed her opinion, which puts her June 10 video warning of nuclear war in a different light. We must know that what we are talking about is the end of humanity, should there be nuclear war.
Israel’s Nuclear Weapons—the History, the Danger
John Steinbach, of the Hiroshima Nagasaki Peace Committee of the National Capitol Area, opened with a joke, “I’m so old that I remember that there was a time when I agreed more with Bernie Sanders than with Tucker Carlson.” He offered a concise history of Israel’s nuclear weapons program, beginning after WWII when the U.S. gave a 5-megawatt research reactor each to Israel and to Iran. But the French then played a key role in helping Israel develop a nuclear weapons capability.
Both Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy opposed Israel getting a nuclear bomb, and Kennedy sent inspectors. Israel deceived them by creating a non-military mock-up. Mordechai Vanunu worked at Dimona, Israel’s nuclear complex, and smuggled out photos and documents, after which Western analysts concluded that Israel had developed an H-bomb. Israel now has missiles capable of reaching Washington and Moscow. Steinbach offered a link to his paper on the Israeli nuclear weapons program.
Ray McGovern, former Senior Analyst for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a Founding Member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), backed up Steinbach’s history of Israel’s nuclear weaponry. McGovern observed that we now know that former chief of the CIA’s counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton, was “the equivalent of an Israeli spy.” Any CIA report that mentioned Israel had to go through Angleton. He was also complicit in the assassination of John Kennedy, McGovern stated. Was Kennedy’s opposition to an Israeli bomb a motive for his assassination?
On the question of how to deal with someone as confused and mercurial as Trump, McGovern said that Putin and the Chinese are dealing with him the best way they know how.
Zepp-LaRouche asked: Why can’t Israel’s nuclear weapons be discussed? McGovern said it is being discussed more and more in alternative media. He recalled that even CIA head William Burns, on his way out last Fall, reiterated that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and if they started, we would know very quickly.
Steinbach said that the concept of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was that non-nuclear states had a right to nuclear energy, and the nuclear states would pursue disarmament. Israel is the only nuclear weapons state which is not a signatory to the Treaty.
Global South Is Focused on Development
Prof. Eduardo Siqueira, from Brazil, is a retired professor of Public Health at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. He reported that the focus of the Global South is on development, and that wars are being used to sabotage that agenda. The BRICS are trying to do something similar to what Zepp-LaRouche wants to do with her proposal for a New Security and Development Architecture. It has become clear to them that what is being done in the Middle East is intended to paralyze the BRICS and the BRI. “Since Obama, there has been this so-called Pivot to Asia,” designed to disrupt China’s initiatives. The U.S. is losing hegemony, and is using Israel to paralyze the development alternative.
Diane Sare, President of The LaRouche Organization, gave a firsthand report from one of the two rallies held near the United Nations this week, on the theme, “No War against Iran.” People at the UN are told not to even accept leaflets on the street, but they got contacts nonetheless. She said that there is massive loss of support for Trump in his base, while the billionaires who run the “No Kings” rallies behind the scenes, don’t oppose the genocide or the war drive. Sare’s recent video on TikTok has gone viral.
Discussion
Frequent IPC panelist Dennis Fritz, prominent representative of the Eisenhower Media Group, spoke of the methods the U.S. used during the Iraq War to smear Hans Blix and other uncooperative leaders of the IAEA, who were genuinely working against nuclear weapons proliferation. Fritz emphasized that if the U.S. attacks Iran, Iran and its allies have the means to respond.
Jacques Cheminade, long time leader in France of the LaRouche movement, said that people are losing their illusions. Macron is fully discredited. Trump has divided loyalties and consequently a confused policy. “The enemy is becoming naked at this point.”
Zepp-LaRouche said the only way out of this crisis would be for the U.S. and Europeans to publicly declare that they want to collaborate with the BRICS in building infrastructure. Unless the monetarist bubble is corrected, things will only get worse.
In response to a question, McGovern compared “the silence of the institutional church”—citing Catholics and Lutherans, that we see now, to what happened during the Third Reich. He quoted Bishop Tutu: “We’re not all guilty, but we are all responsible.”
Siqueira explained that most people in the North don’t realize what the Global South can offer the world. Brazil has a rich fusion of different cultures–Portuguese, African, indigenous. The world can learn from this, and the U.S, benefits from it through immigration.
In response to a comment by a Muslim-American leader, co-moderator Dennis Small said that we urgently need to put out this Israel-Iran fire, but we must also recognize that there is an arsonist running loose – British geopolitics — and the impetus is the bankruptcy of the financial system. Later in his concluding remarks, Small reported that President Putin, speaking to media at a late-night June 18 St. Petersburg gathering, told a reporter from Reuters who asked a hostile question, that it is possible to both guarantee Iran’s sovereign right to nuclear energy, while also providing full security for Israel. Small paraphrased: we can both put out the fire, and we can also put the arsonist away for good, which is the job of the true statesman.
Concluding remarks
McGovern observed that Trump is like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Will he put the lethal blow to NATO at the Summit next week? That would be a good thing.
Siqueira said that we are seeing the beginning of a new world, and the old world is resisting.
Small emphasized that the upcoming Schiller Institute [[Berlin Conference July 12-13]] [[]] is of great strategic importance, and will arm us with the ideas to solve the crisis.
Zepp-LaRouche recalled that our movement has been an integral part of this struggle for development from the beginning, since LaRouche’s International Development Bank proposal in the 1970s. In the 11 years since the announcement of the BRI, it has become the dominant dynamic in the world. Nothing short of nuclear war will stop it. The rational move for the US would be to join it. We plan to make videos to show our vision of a developing planet.
Readers are invited to share and use clips from this meeting. Please give credit to the International Peace Coalition. Please also join the Hiroshima Nagasaki Peace Committee in partnership with Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom for a teach-in on Trinity Day, July 16, 2025, 7:00pm EDT, marking the 80th anniversary of the first nuclear test. Please register here.
