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by EIR staffJune 20–Opening the 107^th 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.

by EIR staff

To open the 106^th consecutive weekly online meeting of the International Peace Coalition, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, warned that Israel’s attack on Iran may mark the beginning of World War III. She alluded to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s timely video on the very real threat of a nuclear exchange, and noted that the precisely targeted assassinations of leading Iranian scientists and military and political leaders suggests that Israel received technical assistance from unidentified intelligence services. It is clear that Israel’s objective is to draw the US into the war, and we must remember that Iran is key part of the BRICS and the Belt and Road Initiative. “There was nothing in the behavior of Iran which would have legitimized such an attack… From the standpoint of the UN Charter, this is a completely illegal act of aggression,” she said, and reiterated “our old demand” for a New Security and Development Architecture.

 M.K. Bhadrakumar, a former Indian diplomat to the USSR who has held leading positions in the Indian Foreign Ministry, addressed the Israeli attack on Iran: “I never believed that this was about Iran’s propensity or Iran’s likelihood to develop nuclear weapons… there is no moral ground involved here.” Iran is being asked  by Trump to give up the same stature as Japan or Germany as a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, with “full-spectrum inspection” by IAEA. Trump is singularly responsible for this situation. Unless Israel is restrained, which only the US can do, Iran might leave the NPT.

Leading nuclear weapons expert Dr. Theodore Postol, professor emeritus of Science, Technology and International Security at MIT, asserted that “Iran wants to avoid making a nuclear weapon… Iran’s policy is highly rational.” There is internal opposition to this policy, and this opposition is strengthened by the attacks on Iran. “We know from all historical experience that bombing a country brings that country together against the external adversary,” Postol said. On June 1, Ukraine violated a fundamental precept of the Cold War, that one does not attack the strategic forces of any nation. Legally, Russia would have been justified in attacking US and UK, who were clearly involved. Putin is an exceptional leader because he did not react.

Larry Johnson, former CIA officer and a cofounder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) , also commented on Iran: “This attack was carried out with the full knowledge and participation of the United States… There is a pattern emerging here that Israel cannot be trusted in any sort of negotiation whatsoever–nor can the United States.”

Regular panelist Ray McGovern is a former Senior Analyst for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a Founding Member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). He described the situation as nuanced and complex. “What I see as a silver lining here,” he said, is that this may compel more dialogue between the US and Russia. “US complicity is somewhat in doubt, despite the braggadocio… Can the Israelis be restrained when things don’t go quite their way? I don’t think so.”

Zepp-LaRouche responded that we need contextualization for what is happening in the Middle East, that being the attempt to stop the rise of a new system typified by BRICS+. We must not only analyze, but provide an alternative. As long as we are not resolving the underlying conflict with the New Peace and Development Architecture, new hot spots will continue to erupt.

McGovern thanked her for mentioning Gabbard’s unprecedented video.

Gershon Baskin is an Israeli columnist, social and political activist, and a researcher of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and peace. In a video interview conducted by EIR, he said, “We all know that President Trump is the only person who can tell Netanyahu to end the war.” He welcomed the efforts of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to influence Trump, and agreed on the need for an economic solution. “The obstacles to Palestinian development by the Israeli occupation need to be removed… It makes no sense whatsoever for Israel to want to have poor neighbors.”

Zepp-LaRouche commented that it goes beyond the suffering of the Palestinians:  “I’m afraid that impact on the moral order of the world will be devastating.”

A scheduled On the Ground Report from the ongoing March for Gaza in Egypt was not possible for technical reasons. However, moderator Anastasia Battle later provided an urgent update: there are reports that the Egyptian government is using force against the marchers. Leaders are prepared to use nonviolent methods to protest if there is repression and activists are deported.

Discussion

TLO President Diane Sare warned that the efforts to impeach Trump could lead to  a destabilization of the United States. She observed that Trump “has an enormous ego, and is not a very profound thinker.” But the people leading the campaign against Trump gave us the Ukraine coup and other neocon atrocities. Zepp-LaRouche added that “the migrant issue is being handled in a way that is antagonizing many people.” She reminded viewers that her husband Lyndon advised never to use the military against your own people. “Let’s remove the root causes for the migrant question,” she said, citing hunger, war, etc.

Question: Israel says they attacked Iran to prevent American peace talks from succeeding. Were the talks real, or a setup for the war? Zepp-LaRouche responded that she wishes she knew the answer; the only power which can restrain Israel is the US, “but then he didn’t do it… The picture which comes together is not transparent… it is very much a mixed bag.”  

In response to a questioner who raised questions about AI and suggested that we need a social contract, co-moderator Dennis Small attacked the Rousseauvian notion of a contract to reconcile divergent self-interests, as opposed to a concept of the common interests of mankind. He added that AI, like other technological advances, is a double-edged sword.

A woman from Iran asked Zepp-LaRouche whether Israel would even consider an attack on Iran without a green light from the US? She responded that complicity and even aid is very likely, but it is not a simple matter. ”Is the US controlled by the Zionist lobby, or is the Anglo-American Empire using Israel for its own strategic purposes?”

An Indian/Danish journalist cited the India-Pakistan tensions created by the way Britain divided the subcontinent, asking, How do we address the way the British fuel conflicts rather than resolving them? Zepp-LaRouche noted also how Boris Johnson sabotaged Ukraine peace deal. Russian officials are now calling out the British for their role. The story of unprovoked aggression by Russia has been widely discredited. An investigation into the British role is needed

In response to a Colombian labor leader’s question about the encyclical Rerum Novarum, Zepp-LaRouche called it a watershed decision, that the Church should not just pray, but must intervene in social policy.

Question: would there be lasting peace if the Islamic world accepted the Biblical authority of Israel over the land, and the Palestinians were displaced into other Arab states? Zepp-LaRouche declined to comment on any Biblical theories of property ownership. Should the Palestinians pay the price for what the Germans did to the Jews? It’s the perpetuation of injustice, the evil deed giving birth to more evil deeds. The two-state solution is the solution, but there is not enough water to go around without the [[Oasis Plan]] [[ https://schillerinstitute.com/the-oasis-plan-the-larouche-solution-for-southwest-asia/]].

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Founder of the Schiller Institute and initiator of the International Peace Coalition (IPC), opened the 105th consecutive weekly meeting today by warning that the strategic situation has significantly worsened over the past week with the June 1 drone attacks by Ukraine deep inside the territory of Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown remarkable forbearance. It is ominous that U.S. President Donald Trump says he was not informed of the operation, despite the fact that MI6 and CIA were almost surely involved in its planning and targeting. It is important that the two Presidents spoke June 4.

It is clear that the perpetrators hoped to corral Trump into the “Coalition of the Willing,” that wishes to perpetuate the war. Neocons within the Trump administration are also agitating for some sort of provocation against Iran, and the horror in Gaza continues unabated.

Zepp-LaRouche made a point of advising everyone, in order to understand the ongoing “scenario” of madness, to read the June 5 column in the Washington Post, “Ukraine’s Dirty War Is Just Getting Started,” by senior reporter David Ignatius.

Understanding Russia

The IPC meeting, which occurred on the anniversary of the 1944 D-Day Normandy invasion, featured an intense, but grave back and forth about the nature of the attacks on Russia: Why are they occurring? What will President Putin do?

Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), said that Russia has chosen not to escalate, because its leaders hope that they can still negotiate with Trump and develop a decent relationship with the U.S. The Russians are furious over the attack, but Putin “remains calm, cool and collected, as we say in the States.” Western analysts got all worked up, but what have the Russians said? “Almost nothing.” The Ukrainians and their masters had hoped to get Russia to overreact, in order to manipulate the U.S. into joining the “coalition of the dead brains.” McGovern said that the New York Times lies when it reports that Russia is responding to attacks on its military bases. The Russians are not saying this at all; they say they are responding to “terrorist attacks” on civilian infrastructure.

Jose Vega, a leader of the LaRouche movement and independent candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in New York’s 15th Congressional District, addressed this point during the discussion, asking how, if attacks are being classified by Russia as terrorism, and Russia does not negotiate with terrorists, does this represent a change? McGovern replied that the Russians are concentrating on the attacks on the bridges, and deliberately avoiding discussion of the attack on their strategic forces. They consider the Ukrainian leadership terrorists, but they intend to negotiate. McGovern said that Putin “will surprise everybody with how much sangfroid he has.”

Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector and former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence specialist, made the fundamental point that there is no overlap between the core interests of NATO and of Russia. Russia will not tolerate a Ukraine that is being used as a proxy to sabotage Russia. Moscow will continue to insist on the demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine. The West continues to hope that Russia will bend the knee. But, he said, “The root causes of this conflict will be addressed.”

In reply, McGovern said that Russia will stick to its announced objectives, but has no interest in taking possession of all of Ukraine. Zepp-LaRouche replied at one point to McGovern, commenting, “I’m probably an optimist for a slightly different reason than Ray.” She cited a German proverb, which she translated as, “the best person cannot live in peace, if the evil neighbor doesn’t like it.”

The Role of the British

In his presentation, Ritter charged that the British have been heavily deployed to “keep Ukraine in the fight…. I believe that the British have been heavily involved in trying to help the Ukrainians to kill the Russian President.”

During the discussion, McGovern recounted that his Irish grandfather once told him: “The British are responsible for every untoward thing that has happened in the world for the last three centuries.” The Brits were probably involved on multiple levels with the Ukrainian attacks, and Trump was probably kept out of the loop.

Dennis Fritz, past director of the Eisenhower Media Network and a retired Command Chief Master Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, added that the British are “living their dream through us” in the United States. Fritz reminded the participants that then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson shot down the 2022 peace deal between Ukraine and Russia that was worked out in the first round of talks in Istanbul. He later added that he had studied the playbook of the neocons in the Pentagon, where he had served and seen it first-hand, and part of their playbook is to work behind the back of the President.

The Significance of the Assassination Threats

During the discussion, IPC co-moderator Dennis Small said that the problem with the Ukrainian attacks is that they come in the context of assassination attempts against both Trump and Putin. They represent a statement of intent. Unless we are able to implement the diplomacy and development solutions of the Schiller Institute, they will find a way to take the world to war. Zepp-LaRouche pointed out that if one of these assassination attempts actually succeeds, we could lose civilization.

McGovern went further, saying that one incentive for Putin to deal with Trump is that he realizes that both of them may not be around much longer.

Details of the Attacks on Russia

Col. (ret.) Richard H. Black, former head of the U.S. Army’s Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon, Marine Corps combat veteran, and former Virginia State Senator, said that the Ukrainian drone attack was a substantial psychological blow. It turns out that the Ukrainian claims of damage to Russian aircraft were exaggerated, but there was an initial psychological impact, and it was timed to disrupt the peace talks. NATO has a long-range plan to continue the hostilities. Clearly, U.S. satellite imagery was used by Ukraine, and it is likely that the CIA or MI6 played a leading role in planning the operation.

Lt. Col. (ret.) Ralph Bossard of the Swiss Armed Forces, a consultant on military-strategic affairs, in 2014 served as a senior planning officer for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Special Monitoring Mission (OSCE SMM). He presented key specifics of what is known about Ukraine’s June 1 Operation Spiderweb drone attack. Bossard expressed regret that there are people in the Western media, and even in the intelligence agencies, who are ready to uncritically repeat anything the Ukrainians say. “De-escalation can only be achieved if Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump agree not to take advantage of the current situation,” he said, and characterized Ukraine as “a government whose fanaticism outweighs its intellect.”

Dennis Fritz warned, “At any time, Russia could destroy Ukraine.” Russia has hypersonic intermediate-range missiles, which they could use at any time. The U.S. should be a voice for peace, but we broke the Iran deal, and we vetoed the UN Security Council resolution on Gaza on June 5, Thursday of this week.

Scott Ritter stated that, “over the past couple of weeks there have been two occasions where Russia would be within its doctrinal rights to use nuclear weapons.” One was a Ukrainian drone attack against Putin’s helicopter, a clear assassination attempt. The other was the June 1 drone attack on five of Russia’s strategic air bases.

Upcoming Actions

Ritter reported that on June 18, they will “resurrect the Space Bridge,” on the 40th anniversary of the 1985 Citizens’ Summit organized by Phil Donahue of the United States and Vladimir Pozner of the Soviet Union. Ritter is also making a film called “Thirty-Eight Minutes” about the 2018 false alarm of inbound nuclear missiles in Hawaii.

Zepp-LaRouche announced a demonstration June 6 in the German town of Schrobenhausen, where the Taurus missiles are produced.

A Spanish participant announced that there will also be a demonstration June 6 in Madrid, to “activate the anti-war mentality” in that country.