By Harley Schlanger
24
June 2019
With a meeting confirmed between Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping at the upcoming G20 summit in Japan, and possible meetings between the U.S. leader and his counterparts from Russia and India, the stage is set for a potentially dramatic break with the presently collapsing global strategic/financial system, which grows more unstable daily. In the last days, Trump has spoken on several occasions of his desire for “great relations” with China and Russia. The offensive which he launched with Attorney General Barr against the anti-Trump forces, to “get to the bottom” of what was behind Russiagate, is moving ahead, giving him some breathing room, making it possible that this summit might just be the opportunity for the broad strategic shift to be initiated, against war, globalized free trade and austerity, which he promised in his successful 2016 election campaign.
Yet, as has occurred before at such moments, the British war party, which built this tottering system and remains totally committed to preserving it, has launched a series of provocations, which threaten not only to derail the talks, but could lead to general, global, possibly nuclear war. That this potential breakthrough in the meetings in Japan reflects the general outline developed by Lyndon LaRouche, for a Four Power agreement between the U.S., Russia, China and India to create a new Bretton Woods financial system, is fueling the desperation of the British Empire’s war party, which is now facing an existential threat to its continued control of the world economy, maintained until now through the deployment of geopolitical conflicts, regime change coups, and war.

Since Trump’s election, there has been a systematic deployment to prevent him from pursuing his stated intent of achieving peaceful cooperation with the great powers. The forces centered in London and their allies in Washington, including the Wall Street “establishment” and its foot soldiers among Bush-linked neocons in the Republican party and the Obama-Clinton faction among Democrats, used the made-in-Britain fabrication of “Russian hacking/Trump collusion” to put constraints on the President from the outset. When Trump courageously fought back against this fraud and the attempted J. Edgar Hoover-style blackmail against him, they escalated, using “Russiagate” to attempt a de facto coup to remove him.

This strategy has failed. Not only was the special counsel deployed against him, legal hit man Robert Mueller, unable to find any credible evidence to prove the anti-Putin, anti-Trump narrative, but evidence has emerged on a daily basis poking huge holes in the story, exposing the collaboration between British intelligence and Obama’s team in running the regime change coup. It now appears that, if Barr follows the directive from Trump, to find out who and what is behind Russiagate, the apparatus first put in place at the end of World War II to put the U.S. on a British leash, will be broken, freeing the U.S. to pursue foreign and economic policies based on national interest, rather than using U.S. military power to protect the “globalist” empire—which President Eisenhower famously identified as the “Military-Industrial Complex—and its corporate interests.

All that remains for this apparat, to disrupt the potential for this move to a New Paradigm, is an increasingly provocative policy, including unleashing terrorism and war, using “False Flags” in the Middle East, with an escalation against Iran, economic warfare against China, and the launching of massive cyber-attack sagainst Russia’s infrastructure. The result is that the danger of an escalation to actual thermonuclear war between the U.S. and Russia and China, is greater today than at anytime since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

The threat of all-out war emerging from this British strategy has not been lost on the Russians and Chinese. In an interview on June 13, Putin said, “Unfortunately …our relations with the U.S.—they are in fact deteriorating, getting worse by the hour.” Even while expressing the hope for fruitful exchanges with Trump at the G20 summit, he warned that “If we don’t keep this ‘fiery dragon’under control, if we let it out of the bottle—God forbid—this could lead to global catastrophe. “Russian diplomats are echoing the tone and substance of those remarks nearly daily. On June 17, Russia’s Ambassador to the U.S. Antonov told the Seattle World Affairs Council that, while he believes the American people don’t want nuclear war, “…if we do not fix these problems, this is what we face.” Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov warned that U.S. actions against Iran are “rather provocative and cannot be considered as anything other than a deliberate policy to instigate a war.”

And while a June 18 phone call between Trump and Xi confirmed a meeting between the two in Osaka, China’s State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has warned the U.S. to”not open a Pandora’s box” with its escalating provocations around Iran. The continued assault against the Chinese telecom firm Huawei, and threats of new tariffs on Chinese goods, add to the friction in U.S.-Chinese relations, despite repeated assurances from Trump of his “great friendship” with Xi.

THE WAR PARTY DEPLOYMENT

This is not the first time that the prospect of diplomatic breakthroughs at summits between Trump, with Putin and Xi, was met by provocations to limit or even prevent them from occurring. This process intensified after the successful Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki on June 6, 2018, in which the two engaged in extensive discussion about collaboration to prevent a new arms race from escalating. Trump’s opponents, both inside and outside his administration, and the anti-Trump media, used that occasion to accuse Trump of submitting to Putin, after he stated that he believed Putin rather than U.S. intelligence, over allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Determined to prevent further substantive discussions from occurring, an incursion by Ukrainian naval vessels into Russian territorial waters in the Kerch Strait was used to prevent a summit between the two at the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires on January 30, 2019.

Following a ninety-minute phone call between the two on May 5, which led to renewed optimism that cooperation would overcome hostile rhetoric and new sanctions imposed on Russia, the war party initiated new provocations over Iran. First there were vague warnings about “new intelligence” announced by Secretary of State Pompeo, of threats to U.S. personnel and interests in the Persian Gulf. John Bolton cited those warnings in his announcement that the carrier strike group USS Abraham Lincoln was being deployed to the Persian Gulf. On June 13, following attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, which looked suspiciously like the faked Gulf of Tonkin incident used to trigger U.S. escalation in Vietnam in August 1964, Pompeo said a “government assessment” concluded that Iran was behind the attacks, adding, “This is only the latest in a series of attacks instigated by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its surrogates against American and allied interests.” On June 18, the Pentagon announced the deployment of an additional 1,000 troops to the region, reversing the drawing down of U.S. forces announced by Trump in 2018. That announcement had been met by fierce opposition, including the vote for a non-binding Senate resolution rejecting the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

On June 20, a U.S. drone was shot down by Iran. The U.S. claimed that the drone was in international air space, a claim refuted by Iran. While Trump initially attempted to downplay this incident, saying it may have been a “mistake,” he is under immense pressure to respond to this with a military strike of some sort against Iran, one which, if carried out, would threaten the potential for diplomatic progress at the G20 summit.***

As tensions grew due to events in the Persian Gulf, the New York Times reported on June 15 of a new phase in U.S. cyber warfare against Russia. “The United States is stepping up digital incursion into Russia’s electric power grid in a warning to President Vladimir V. Putin,” the article stated, attributing this policy to the “Trump administration”. However, as the Times continued, it is unclear if Trump was aware of this policy, as under National Security Presidential Memorandum 13, there is no specification that there be presidential authorization of cyber attacks! The Times went on to further undermine Trump’s authority: “Two administration officials said they believed Mr. Trumphad not been briefed in any detail.” The article claimed there is “broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction—and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials.”

Thus, in one article, the NYT details new, war-like actions against Russia, while implying that the elected President is being kept from knowing what is being done by his administration—in effect, making clear that the failure of the Mueller investigation is not stopping the war party from acting on its own, over-the-head and behind-the-back of the President. This picture is reinforced by reports that National Security Adviser and war-hawk John Bolton is tightly controlling the intelligence which is getting to Trump, making him dependent on the war party’s assessment of hot spots.

“SLEEPWALKING” INTO WORLD WAR III

Schiller Institute chairman Helga Zepp LaRouche has repeatedly warned that, due especially to media censorship and lying about events such as those described above, the populations of the Trans-Atlantic region are “sleepwalking” into World War III, in a repeat of the way the British orchestrated the two devastating wars of the twentieth century. With a financial system overburdened with unpayable debt, and a shrinking physical economy unable to sustain a population of over seven billion people, the oligarchs responsible for the century of war are preparing for new, even-more disastrous wars.

Such an outcome is not inevitable, especially if there is broad support for President Trump to pursue the path for mutual benefit in relations with the great powers he has stated as his intent. As became clear in the case of North Korea, in which China, Russia, South Korea and Japan joined with Trump to offer economic benefits to President Kim Jong-un if he gave up his intention to build up his nation’s nuclear forces, such cooperation is feasible. The key to the situation with North Korea was the promise that it would be able to join in the great global project of China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI), ending its economic isolation and poverty, if it dropped its nuclear ambitions.

The ideas behind the BRI—the design of which came initially from Lyndon LaRouche, and his been championed by the tireless activity of Helga Zepp LaRouche—have already demonstrated how it can serve what can be described as the common interests of mankind. Having lifted 800 million Chinese out of poverty in two decades, the BRI has gained widespread support from Asian, African and South American nations. Despite the heavy-handed deployment against it from the City of London, which has been reinforced by neocon/neoliberal institutions in the European Union, there is growing interest among European nations to participate in it. And while anti-Chinese propaganda in the U.S. has prevented most Americans from knowing what the BRI is, the Chinese continue to offer to Trump a role for the U.S. in the project, which offers mutual benefits which will never be achieved by trade war, or military confrontation.

This is what is at stake in the upcoming G20 summit, the choice between war or cooperation. By making clear to the general population that this is the alternative they face, then the danger of sleepwalking into a global nightmare can be overcome, and a new era of peace and cooperation can emerge, creating an unlimited potential for the future of humanity.

ADDENDUM

This article was written, on June 22, before the drama later that day, when President Trump called off a strike on Iran ten minutes before it was set to go.

While it is commendable that he called off the strike, it was reckless to order it in the first place, as it put us possibly ten minutes away from a potential nuclear World War III. It is more urgent than ever that Trump remove Bolton, Pompeo and others advising him to attack Iran, as they and their allies—including Israel, the Saudis and the UK—will likely be preparing another False Flag to provide an excuse for a war, as war is what they want. Since it is clear Trump does not want war, he must not only dump the war party, but take advantage of the upcoming summit to forge new, cooperative relations with Russia and China—the Europeans will have no choice but to follow.

Below is a short addendum, which clarifies where this danger comes from:

TRUMP’S DECISION TO HALT IRAN STRIKE DOES NOT END DANGER OF WORLD WAR III

June 23—The decision by President Trump to halt a military strike on Iran ten minutes before launch may have prevented a trigger for World War III. However, if the hawkish networks committed to British geopolitical confrontation, which pushed Trump to retaliate militarily for the Iranian downing of an unmanned drone, are not removed, they will keep up their maniacal war drive until they succeed.

The Wall Street Journal reported on June 23 what most sane observers already suspected, that it was National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who were among the leading advocates of a military strike. The Journal reported that General Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, instead counseled caution, as many in the military are very wary of a military engagement with Iran.

Trump said on June 22 that he decided to halt the strike after asking the question, “How many people will be killed?” When told 150, he said that was a “disproportionate” response to the downing of an unmanned drone. According to various media reports, he added, “These people want to push us into a war, and it’s so disgusting. We don’t need any more wars.” In that discussion, it is reported that he said of Bolton that he previously made a “big mistake” in supporting the Iraq war, but Trump has thus far refrained from sacking him. In contrast, he offered the highest praise for Dunford.

This split in the administration was described by the Schiller Institute’s founder Helga Zepp LaRouche in a June 21 webcast as demonstrating a “dual power” situation, leading many world leaders to ask the question, “who is in charge in Washington?” She referred to the June 15 New York Times article on U.S. cyber attacks on Russia’s energy grid, as more evidence of this dangerous split. That article cited two administration officials who said “they believed Mr. Trump had not been briefed in any detail” on the escalation of cyber warfare against Russia. The two stated that there is “a broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction—and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials.”

This comment, contrasting Trump to the gung-ho war hawks in his administration, explains what has been behind Russiagate from the beginning. This is continuing, as the advocates of confrontation fear that Trump may achieve diplomatic success in discussions at the G20 summit with Presidents Putin and Xi, defining a path away from confrontation, to mutually beneficial, peaceful economic relations. An escalation in tension with Iran, due to military engagement, could have provided the excuse they need to prevent such meetings from occurring.