STRATEGIC ALERT NEWSLETTER
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| | | “We are organizing this Oasis Conference to inject a perspective of hope and show a way out of an otherwise desperate, extremely dangerous, and indeed, catastrophic situation in Southwest Asia.” With this forward-looking challenge, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Chairwoman of the international Schiller Institute, began her keynote speech to the Institute’s April 13 online conference devoted to the Oasis Plan, “The LaRouche Solution for Peace through Development between Israel and Palestine, and All of Southwest Asia”.
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“If we don’t replace the present escalation, which could rapidly turn into a full-fledged regional war, turning into a global nuclear war, it could mean the end of the human species on this planet. In order to avoid that short-term danger, what is needed is a cognitive jump, to conceptualize an entirely different approach”, Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche continued. Such an approach requires defining and fulfilling the economic and security self-interest of the Palestinians and the Israelis, as well as of the neighboring countries in the larger region.
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For South-West Asia, the crucial issue is, and has been, not oil, but the lack of water, which the projects in the Oasis Plan would create in abundance. The basics of that plan, the principles of which were first laid out by Lyndon LaRouche as far back as 1975, are well-known to our readers. They were supported by the other speakers in Panel I (cf. below), including ambassadors of Palestine and South Africa and high-level diplomats of Russia and Belarus. However, a debate arose as to whether such an economic development project could actually be agreed upon before hostilities have been resolved, as LaRouche insisted, or if a political solution first has to be negotiated and implemented.
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In the context of the Oslo negotiations in 1993-94, LaRouche had urged that “the shovels should be in the ground immediately”, so that people can see the benefits that flow from cooperation. He proposed that one must start from the standpoint of what the region could look like in 10 or 20 years, and longer, of how much economic and cultural development all the populations could enjoy, if plentiful water and other resources were available to all, and then work back from that perspective, to define what must be done today to make it a reality.
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In that way, so many obstacles that seem insurmountable today, can in fact be overcome, because it corresponds to the interest of all well-meaning people. An historic example of that approach, raised by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, is the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia that put an end to the horrendous Thirty Years war in Europe, by having the warring parties commit to ensuring the “advantage of the other”. Today, that means implementing a new development and security architecture.
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| Helga Zepp-LaRouche is convinced that if the BRICS and other countries of the Global South commit to “the development perspective of the Oasis Plan and convene a comprehensive Southwest Asia conference on an emergency basis in the tradition of the Peace of Westphalia, the present looming catastrophe can be avoided, and the crisis turned into the beginning of a new era of peace and development”. |
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| | | After opening remarks by Helga Zepp-LaRouche (cf. above), two ambassadors from Palestine had the floor: H.E. Prof. Dr. Manuel Hassassian, Palestinian Ambassador to Denmark; and H.E. Mounir Anastas, Palestinian Ambassador to UNESCO.
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Professor Hassassian said that Palestine had been conquered many times in history, pointing to the Balfour Mandate that unleashed a century of aggression and ethnic cleansing in the forced creation of a Zionist “homeland” through the expulsion of the Palestinians, such that you can say that “the Palestinians paid the price for the Holocaust in Europe”. Now, Israel has a “license to kill” with full backing of the U.S. Israel is declared to be the “bastion of democracy” in the Mideast, but it is clearly no democracy but a theocracy. His Excellency thanked the SI for providing a “window of opportunity” with the conference.
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Ambassador Anastas pointed out that UNESCO has had a water project since 1965, and will hold a conference in Bali, Indonesia on it in May. Israel has used water as a weapon, and the world has watched with “passive complicity” even from those who are not arming Israel. He pointed out that UNESCO, as a UN organization, has different fields of competence and “all have been targetted or destroyed by the Israeli aggression”, including journalists, educational facilities and schools, and cultural centers.
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The Ambassador of the Republic of South Africa to Mexico, H.E. Beryl Rose Sisulu, discussed the role of her nation in establishing a principle for resolving racial and ethnic divisions and hatred through negotiations and cooperation, as her country had resolved years of Apartheid going back to the Dutch and British occupation beginning in the 17th century. It was a long and violent struggle, but was resolved through peaceful negotiations.
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The “world has never been so close to nuclear war”, warned H.E. Donald Ramotar, former President of Guyana, in his remarks. However, he emphasized that the possibilities for escaping global poverty and war exist, which he went on to summarize.
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Dr. Connie Rahakundini Bakrie, lecturer and strategic analyst from Indonesia, reviewed the history of the region, proposing that the British and the French, who caused the problem, must sit down together to figure out how to get out of the crisis.
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H.E. Pavel Shidlovsky, Chargé d’Affaires of Belarus to the U.S., noted that the emergence of a multipolar world was “unacceptable to the West”. He described the Oasis Plan as “ambitious, a benefit for all,” which “grows on you the more you study it”, saying he hoped others would join.
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An interesting initiative for resolving the disaster in Gaza was presented by Prof. Georgy Toloraya, Director of the Russian National Committee for BRICS Research. This plan would involve having the BRICS play a major role in the administration of the area and in organizing infrastructure development.
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Graham Fuller, the former vice-chair of the U.S. National Intelligence Agency, with many years in the CIA in the Islamic world, described the Oasis Plan as “the most exciting element to arise in a long time” in the Mideast. He was optimistic about its success , arguing hopefully that the end of the Cold War could prevent the interference by colonial powers to sabotage it.
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| We will report on Panel II of the conference, which dealt more specifically with the actual projects involved in the Oasis Plan, in next week’s issue. Meanwhile, all the presentations are available in video on the Schiller Institute website and many of the texts will be published in EIR Magazine.Highlights of the conference are also featured in a 1’20’’ video here. |
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| | | From the moment Israeli missiles destroyed the Iranian consulate in Syria on April 1, in flagrant violation of international law, the international community was speculating over the reprisals the Islamic Republic vowed to take. It was only 12 days later – after the United States and other Western countries had refused to condemn the bombing - that the counter-attack was launched. And at least 72 hours before that, Tehran had given advance notice to several countries in the region, which was made known to the U.S. and Israel, in order to reduce the number of causalities. The counter-attack was overall restrained, given the amount of force Iran could have used.
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Nonetheless, it was immediately hyped up in the transatlantic mainstream media as an “unprovoked” operation aimed at annihilating Israel. In fact, most media never even mentioned the trigger for it, namely the destruction of the Iranian consulate. One of the reasons for portraying Israel as the poor “victim” of an “unwarranted attack” is obviously to deflect attention from the genocide the Netanyahu government is knowingly carrying out in Gaza.
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U.S. President Biden reportedly told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Washington would not support any Israeli counter-attack against Iran, but reaffirmed “America’s ironclad commitment to the security of Israel”. The Pentagon had already ordered aircraft and ballistic missile defense systems to deploy to the region a week before, in anticipation of an expansion of the conflict. How and when an Israeli government in a wild flight forward will respond, in a tit for tat pattern, remains to be seen.
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Some military experts have pointed out that the counter-attack demonstrated that Iran can, in fact, successfully penetrate the vaunted Iron Dome “shield” over Israel, even though the U.S. Central Command, and British and French armed forces joined Israel’s defenses to repel it. According to these experts, Tehran used drones to activate the Israeli radar systems; cruise missiles to identify the position of Israeli launchers (by forcing Israel to fire on them); and ballistic missiles to, in fact, hit several sites, including two air bases in the Negev Desert, and Israeli air defense sites.
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This led former International Atomic Energy Agency Inspector Scott Ritter to comment on his Substack site: “Despite having employed an extensive integrated anti-missile defense system comprised of the so-called ‘Iron Dome’ system, U.S.-made Patriot missile batteries, and the Arrow and David’s Sling missile interceptors, along with U.S., British, and Israeli aircraft, and U.S. and French shipborne anti-missile defenses, well over a dozen Iranian missiles struck heavily-protected Israeli airfields and air defense installations.”
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| Scott Ritter’s piece is called The Missiles of April, a take on the title of Barbara Tuchman’s famous study of World War One, The Guns of August. The foolish, inexorable slide into world war in August 1914 had begun more than two decades earlier, and was, just as today, denied by the ruling elites as having been “their intention”. |
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| | | With a rerun of the 2020 election underway between the same two candidates, whom polls show are widely disliked, it is no surprise that the U.S. is facing intense political turmoil seven months before voters go to the polls. There are deepening splits within both parties, driven by the growing recognition that the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is lost, and that U.S. backing for Israel's ethnic cleansing in Gaza makes America complicit in what jurists have declared is a plausible case of genocide.
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The most immediate battle is over President Biden's supplemental funding bill which would back Ukraine with $60+ billion in aid, and Israel with $14+ billion, with smaller amounts to go to Taiwan and border protection at home. Republicans allied with Donald Trump and his MAGA movement have blocked the Ukraine funding, and have threatened to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson, also a Republican, if he caves into pressure from neocons in both parties to support the bill. Those who back the bill point to the collapse of Ukraine's defenses, due to lack of manpower, weapons and money, arguing that if President Putin is not stopped now, he will continue to move westward against NATO countries.
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Johnson, who is reported to be considering a compromise, of turning the funding into a "loan-lease package", has aroused deep anger among Republicans, even though the idea originally came from Donald Trump! Opponents of this maneuver argue that Ukraine will never be able to pay back the loan. Johnson's other proposal has been to introduce separate funding bills for Ukraine and Israel, as there is strong support for the latter. However, among the general voting population, there is growing opposition to both conflicts. Polls have found that nearly three-fourths of Republican voters oppose spending more on Ukraine, while there are burgeoning protests among Democrats against President Biden's support for Israel.
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Adding to the volatility within the electorate is the deepening concern that these conflicts will blow up into a full world war. Israel’s deadly missile attack against the Iranian consulate in Syria and the subsequent Iranian retaliation show just how real that concern is.
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Meanwhile, the convening of the first of the Trump trials in a Manhattan courtroom on April 15 is expected to add to the chaos. Charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records related to an alleged payoff to porn actress Stormy Daniels to cover an affair she had with Trump, the former President is required to be in court four days a week, during the trial, which could last six weeks. Three other felony trials are scheduled, allowing Trump to make a reasonable claim that he is the victim of a Biden administration/Department of Justice witch-hunt.
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| In such a charged emotional environment, expectations are low for any serious debate between the leading presidential candidates,leaving voters to choose between competing narratives concocted by brainwashers working for the mainstream media -- not a hopeful sign to the rest of the world. |
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| | | The gap between the higher curve (financial aggregates) and the lower one (physical economy) in Lyndon LaRouche's “Typical Collapse Function” keeps growing, approaching the day of reckoning which, as the great American economist has forecast, will inevitably occur, either in the form of a chain-reaction collapse or of a hyperinflationary blowup. This is the dynamic underlying the global strategic crisis and the danger of war.
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While central banks delude public opinion that inflation is under control, signals from the commodity markets are very different. Commodity prices have been rising for about two months. Gold has gone above $2,300 (up 11% since the beginning of the year), silver has crossed the $26.6 mark (up 12%) and copper the $4.2 mark (up 7%), while WTI quality oil is at $85 the barrel (up 19%).
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Remember, the recent big inflation wave was caused by rising commodity prices, which usually hit consumer prices with a 3 to 6 month delay. That commodity price bubble was fed by free central bank liquidity. The so-called opposite, or Quantitative Tightening, was supposed to bring inflation under control through a traditional monetary squeeze, with a combination of higher interest rates and progressive reduction of central bank balance sheets. But a deeper look shows that central banks actually continued to increase liquidity.
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At the same time, the contraction of the real economy, especially in Europe, has gained speed, as indicators such as the S&P Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) shows. PMI indicates the physical economic activity level of companies, and is therefore a better indicator of the actual state of the economy than GDP, which is inflated by financial values. A PMI above 50 means expansion; a PMI below 50 means contraction.
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The comparison between major EU economies and Russia is ruthless. Germany’s Manufacturing PMI went from 42.5 in February to 41.9 in March. More importantly, it has been below 50 for a year, recovering from 38.8 in July, 2023 to 45.5 last January, but never rising further. In France, the EU’s second largest economy, the Manufacturing PMI has also been below 50 for a year, and after a “peak” of 47.1 in February, dropped to 46.2 in March.
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On the other hand, Italy’s PMI has somewhat recovered, going from 44.4 in November to 50.4 in March, which has economists looking for explanations. Among those advanced are lower production costs (123.3 vs. 127.6 for Germany), less “Green” bureaucracy, and more opening up to the Mediterranean, Africa and the Americas. But this is merely hypothesis: The recovery might well be a temporary one, as Italy is a major trade partner of Germany, and a large part of its industry supplies German manufacturers, especially in the automotive branch. Therefore, a crisis in Germany will have inevitable repercussions in Italy.
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| For comparison: Russia Manufacturing PMI has been consistently above 50 for a year, and was at 55.7 in March. Even if military production has played a role, the same can be said of the three EU countries. |
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| | | The engagement of German industrial companies in China is undoubtedly well-intentioned, and so is the Chinese view of their implication, as reflected in a long article in the April 14 Global Times, on the arrival of Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the country. However, his visit in Chongqing on the first day, which began with a tour to a Bosch factory producing hydrogen and to a joint German-Chinese research project on water quality at Chongqing University, was cut short. The other items on his agenda for April 14 were called off because of crisis sessions with the G7 and other Western institutions in response to the Iranian attack on Israel.
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The next day, he was in Shanghai with his impressive delegation from German industrial powerhouses. There, he urged the Chinese to uphold fair competition and avoid dumping practices. On April 16, his visit will end in Beijing for meetings with Chinese political leaders. He is expected to urge them to stop supporting Russia, including on the Ukraine issue, and to complain about the lack of human rights, and the disregard for environmental issues.
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The April 14 article in Global Times was positive as concerns the economic role played in China by German companies, but also addressed the worrisome loyalty of Germany to western geopolitics, including the EU’s “de-risking” policy. In that regard, Helga Zepp-LaRouche told China’s daily that for an export economy like Germany, it would be "suicidal" to follow these calls for "de-risking".
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"Germany is presently experiencing a dramatic economic downfall”, she said. “Meanwhile, the US has been luring German enterprises to invest in the US instead of Germany with incentives provided by the Inflation Reduction Act. In this adverse environment, the expansion of economic cooperation with China represents an anchor of stability for Germany”, she noted.“Indeed, if Germany does not effectively resist geopolitics, its relations with China will suffer.”
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Geopolitics has also driven Berlin to participate in a series of anti-Chinese NATO military exercises in the Pacific, sending together with France and Spain, 50 fighter jets to Japan, Australia and Hawaii, among other places. A joint exercise with the Indian Air Force is also planned for the first time. Air Force Inspector Ingo Gerhartz bragged that "We are showing a European face in the Indo-Pacific." And from May to November, the German navy is sending the frigate "Baden-Württemberg" and the task force provider "Frankfurt am Main" on a world tour, for joint exercises with the Americans and Canadians on the east coast of North America, then on to the East Pacific and Hawaii.
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| If the China-bashers at the EU Commission should succeed in banning certain Chinese exports to Europe on the pretext that they are subsidized and an alleged threat to the free market, the hardest hit would be German industry, which is the leading European importer of Chinese products. |
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| | | The Biden Administration held its first “trilateral” summit with the leaders of Japan and the Philippines on April 13, as part of the effort to build a chain of containment around China in the region, which would be a step toward creating an Indo-Pacific NATO. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, always eager to bow to the will of the Americans, is playing a key role in this scenario. As U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel put it, the “trilateral” meet is an attempt to “flip the script” and to isolate China from former friends in the region
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The Biden Administration also provided an opportunity for Prime Minister Kishida to address the Congress on April 11, where he gave a speech (in English) which was undoubtedly choreographed and possibly written by Biden’s National Security Council, calling among other things for the elected representatives to provide more aid to Ukraine. Joe Biden also made the somewhat dubious promise that an astronaut from Japan, which is working together with the U.S. in competing with China in space, will have the privilege of being the first non-American to land on the Moon. However, the U.S., with its planned Artemis program, has a way to go before getting to the Moon, and may not get there before China, which is developing its space capabilities at a breathtaking pace.
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While Japan has not yet been invited to join the Anglo-American AUKUS group of the U.S., Great Britain, and Australia, Fumio Kishida is doing everything in his power legislatively to change the Japanese defense policy into a more “pro-active” policy of projecting force in the region. Joining AUKUS, which would allow Japan to have nuclear-driven submarines, would be a first step toward making it a nuclear power. Dreams of Japan’s World War II objectives of creating its own Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere are far from dead in some circles in Japan.
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Most significant was the presence in this new “axis” of the Philippines, the junior member of the clan. Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. has shifted radically from his initial policy of rapprochement with China. The territorial claims of the Philippines, which have come into conflict with those of China, are supported by the West. Already, there have been confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels in the disputed area, which have up until now only involved fire hoses and not bullets. But with the U.S. assuring Marcos that the U.S. and Japan “have his back”, he may become even more aggressive in facing off with China, becoming the same kind of “trigger” that Ukraine has become in NATO’s war with Russia.
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| President Biden noted with great fanfare that the U.S. has had a longer relationship with the Philippines than with any other country in the region. He neglected to add that it began when the Philippines became a U.S. colony after the U.S. Army fought – and won -- a bloody war with Filipino rebels. While Biden may neglect this history, the people of the Philippines have not, and the continued moves by President Marcos to transform the country again into a virtual colony of the U.S. could provoke serious problems for his government. |
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| | | Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD), has published a new “analytic report” of a “large-scale Russian disinformation campaign” it alleges is ongoing in Germany. The summary of the April 8 “report” asserts that it has “established that the Schiller Institute, under the leadership of Helga Zepp-LaRouche, is a platform for promoting narratives consonant with Russian propaganda”.
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The reasons given for labeling the Schiller Institute and its founder as Russian propagandists include that she “supports the so-called ‘peace camp’ in her activities and opposes the supply of weapons to Ukraine”. Moreover, according to the CCD website, she had said that:
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- “Russia is at war with NATO” and “many people in many countries are extremely concerned that this could lead to nuclear war”;
- “the ‘elections’ were held fairly in Russia”,
- “the Russian economy is stronger than before”,
- “Vladimir Putin will be President of this country for another six years, if not longer, with a level of support unmatched by any politician in NATO”,
- “Russia has become very popular among most of the world’s nations, especially African nations, because it not only survived, but also made progress”.
| So much for the reasons given for explicitly targeting the Schiller Institute as such (a first), as well as its founder and current Chairwoman. Up until now, it has targeted Zepp-LaRouche and other individuals associated with the Schiller Institute (cf. SAS 31-33/22, 1/23, 23/23). |
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| | | „Wir veranstalten diese Konferenz, um eine Perspektive der Hoffnung zu geben und einen Ausweg aus einer sonst verzweifelten, extrem gefährlichen, ja katastrophalen Situation in Südwestasien aufzuzeigen.“ Mit dieser zukunftsweisenden Aufforderung begann die Vorsitzende des internationalen Schiller-Instituts, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, ihre Grundsatzrede auf der Online-Konferenz des Instituts am 13.4. „Der Oasenplan - die LaRouche-Lösung für Frieden durch Entwicklung zwischen Israel und Palästina und ganz Südwestasien“.
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Sie fuhr fort: „Wenn wir die gegenwärtige Eskalation, die sich schnell zu einem umfassenden regionalen Krieg und zu einem atomaren Weltkrieg ausweiten kann, nicht abwenden, dann kann dies das Ende der Menschheit auf diesem Planeten bedeuten. Um diese akute Gefahr auszuräumen, brauchen wir einen kognitiven Sprung, um einen völlig anderen Ansatz zu konzipieren. Ein solcher Ansatz erfordert es, die Wirtschafts- und Sicherheitsinteressen der Palästinenser und Israelis sowie der Nachbarländer in der größeren Region zu definieren und zu berücksichtigen.“
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Für Südwestasien war und ist das entscheidende Problem nicht das Öl, sondern der Mangel an Süßwasser - und das würde durch die Projekte des Oasenplans im Überfluß geschaffen. Die Grundlagen dieses Plans, die Lyndon LaRouche schon 1975 dargelegt hat, sind unseren Lesern bekannt. Sie wurden von den anderen Rednern des 1. Konferenzabschnitts unterstützt, darunter Botschafter Palästinas und Südafrikas sowie hochrangige Diplomaten aus Rußland und Weißrußland (s.u.). Es entstand jedoch eine Debatte darüber, ob ein solches wirtschaftliches Entwicklungsprojekt schon vereinbart werden kann, bevor die Feindseligkeiten beendet sind, wie LaRouche forderte, oder ob erst eine politische Lösung ausgehandelt und umgesetzt werden muß.
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LaRouche hatte im Zusammenhang mit den Verhandlungen von Oslo 1993-94 gefordert, daß „die Bauarbeiten sofort anfangen müssen“, damit die Menschen die Vorteile der Zusammenarbeit erkennen. Man solle von der Vision ausgehen, wie die Region in 10, 20 oder mehr Jahren aussehen kann - wieviel wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Entwicklung allen Bevölkerungsgruppen zugute kommt, wenn es für alle reichlich Wasser und andere Ressourcen gibt -, und davon ausgehend bestimmen, was heute zu tun ist, um das zu verwirklichen.
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So könnten viele Hindernisse, die heute unüberwindbar erscheinen, überwunden werden, weil es dem Interesse aller wohlmeinenden Menschen entspricht. Als historisches Beispiel für diesen Ansatz nannte Zepp-LaRouche den Westfälischen Frieden von 1648, der den schrecklichen Dreißigjährigen Krieg in Europa beendete, indem sich alle Kriegsparteien verpflichteten, für den „Vorteil des anderen“ zu arbeiten. Heute bedeute dies die Umsetzung einer neuen Entwicklungs- und Sicherheitsarchitektur für die Welt (vgl. SAS 48/2022).
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| Zepp-LaRouche ist überzeugt, daß wir die drohende Katastrophe verhindern und aus der Krise den Beginn einer neuen Ära des Friedens und der Entwicklung machen können, wenn die BRICS und andere Länder des Globalen Südens „auf die Entwicklungsperspektive des Oasenplans setzen und eine allgemeine Südwestasien-Konferenz in der Tradition des Westfälischen Friedens einberufen“. |
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