Mar. 7—The 92nd consecutive online meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) took place on March 7. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, opened the proceedings with a focus on Europe and Ukraine, where “things are going completely haywire.” President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has announced a “Re-Arm Europe Plan” which will cost 800 billion euros.

Friedrich Merz, projected to be the next Chancellor of Germany, announced the end of the federal budget-limiting “debt brake” in order to have a military budget of 400 billion euros. (On Feb. 23, Merz’s party, the Christian Democratic Union, won the German federal election with a promise not to undo the debt brake.) The historical precedent for such an action is Nazi Economics Minister Hjalmar Schacht’s “MEFO bills,” which were set up in 1933 to finance purchases from armament manufacturers without leaving a paper trail. It is estimated that it would take up to 100 years for Germany to reach levels of armaments, military production, and troops equivalent to what they possessed in 2004.

There are many implications of United States President Donald Trump’s recent pronouncements, including a possible end to intelligence sharing by the U.S. with the British-dominated Five Eyes intelligence cartel. Although France has its own independent nuclear force, the UK is dependent upon U.S. technical support for use of its nuclear weapons.

European leaders, habituated to a litany of “let’s ruin Russia,” cannot adjust to Trump’s nascent peace initiative. If they were smart, they would reflect on how Trump’s election expresses public opposition to the last 35 years of failed neocon “unipolar world” policies.

In Southwest Asia, Egypt’s plan for Gaza reconstruction is “a baby step in the right direction” of the Oasis Plan. “You don’t get a two-state solution if you don’t change the entire dynamic of the region,” emphasized Zepp-LaRouche.

The next speaker was Dr. Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi, founder of the Wasatia Movement in Palestine, and director of the Wasatia Graduate Academic Institute. He grew up as a Palestinian in Jerusalem and described how, over time, he switched his attitude from “us or them,” because he “started to see the human side of my enemy” after witnessing Israeli doctors treating Palestinian patients. He said the current problem is that both sides of the conflict want their own state “from the river to the sea,” which is a fantasy. We need a coalition of Israelis and Palestinians for peace. His goal is to create a culture of moderation, which is the meaning of “Wasatia.”

Zelensky Goes to London

Garland Nixon, veteran progressive radio and television talk show host, began by saying, “NATO is, shall we say, an imperial project.” He shared some things that are currently being discussed in Europe. For example, MI6 is good at playing divide and rule and setting up puppet governments, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is an MI6 project; “When he got punched around a little by Trump, he goes right to London, and they hug him.”

Nixon listed some developments which can work to the advantage of peace activists. Elon Musk is beginning to release videos of brutal conscription practices in Ukraine. Musk has also promoted a video of U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) boasting that the U.S. was behind the 2014 Maidan coup in Ukraine. He noted that Trump has admitted complicity, in that he provided Javelin missiles to Ukraine, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio admits it is a proxy war. It must be recognized that the reality of the Ukraine war is complex, not a simple “good guys vs. bad guys” narrative in which former President Joe Biden created the problem and Trump will fix it.

Miguel Cabrera of the Dominican Republic, a journalist, author, former university professor and current host of the weekly TV program Science, Technology, and Society, praised Trump’s initiative for peace in Ukraine. He characterized the Trump Presidency as a “light at the end of the tunnel” because he is willing to talk to Russia. He stressed that the Ukraine war is not Russia vs. Ukraine, it is Russia vs. NATO. He also emphasized that Israel has carried out a massacre against Palestinian people. A long-time supporter of the Schiller Institute, he pointed to Lyndon LaRouche’s Oasis Plan as a solution to the Middle East crisis.

Excerpts were aired of an interview conducted by EIR’s Mike Billington with Dr. M.K. Bhadrakumar, a retired career diplomat with India’s Ministry of External Affairs, who held diplomatic positions in the Soviet Union, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Türkiye, where he served as India’s Ambassador. Dr. Bhadrakumar decried the West’s “wanton acts of motiveless malignity and hubris.” In regard to the UK, he described how British intelligence is able to persuade American officials to believe that British policies are actually their own. Ukrainian attacks on Russian targets are actually planned by British intelligence. Ukrainian leaders who now speak of assassinating Trump were trained by MI6. He presented an unusual perspective that Iran is America’s natural ally in the region; the Iranian elite are pro-Western. The U.S. working with Iran could be as significant as normalization of U.S.-Russian relations.

An unannounced guest was Kirk Wiebe, a former senior intelligence official and whistleblower with the United States National Security Agency. He said that recent events have “set the stage” for the realization of Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s New International Security and Development Architecture. No country today is prepared to go to war; all of our assets are stretched thin. The U.S. has $36 trillion in debt. He sees the possibility of negotiated peace.

In response, Zepp-LaRouche said that it will not be weeks and months, but rather years before Europe will be ready for war. But, contrary to neocon propaganda, there is no proof of any inclination on Russia’s part for a European war.

A participant asked Dr. Dajani how his plea for cooperation can work when the Israelis do not operate in good faith and they have made no concessions. He insisted that there are moderates and extremists on both sides, and we must teach our children to have “a heart of flesh, not a heart of stone.”

Discussion Period: The Continuing Problem of Colonialism

Zepp-LaRouche said that we need to examine the extent to which Western outlook is still colonialist. The role of the British is starting to receive scrutiny in this regard, and the powers which instigated the Sykes-Picot Treaty are the ones behind the Ukraine war.

Garland Nixon said that the geopolitical fixation on Russia stems from colonialism: If you’re a colonial power, and you have a parasitic orientation, you are losing your hosts around the world, and Russia is the prize because of its vast resources.

A participant asked whether there are situations where the campaign for peace may come into conflict with the aspirations of colonized peoples, citing as examples Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nixon said he didn’t believe such a conflict were necessary, and that we must look at outside powers involved, keeping in mind the history of colonialism.

Veterans for Peace leader Jack Gilroy praised the Oasis Plan as a template for similar solutions around the world, to which Zepp-LaRouche reminded people that in 2014, the Schiller Institute published The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge as a blueprint for rebuilding the world.

A provocative intervention was made by former Guyanese President Donald Ramotar; “Biden and Trump have a similar position, but a different approach,” he said. Biden wanted to work with Europe to bolster the waning Western “unipolar” power, whereas Trump wants to go it alone, and thinks of Europe as “baggage” weakening his position. Trump doesn’t mind rebuilding the U.S. at Europe’s expense.

Zepp-LaRouche also addressed Europe in her closing remarks, but denounced both the U.S. and Europe for the ways that they are engaging in “money creation without a productive basis.” Europe is “issuing unbelievable sums of money for military production,” and the U.S. is pushing cryptocurrencies, among other destructive policies. She called on everyone to get active, especially youth, to intervene in the current “period of revolutionary change,” toward the goal of a new, productive world framework.