EIR LEAD EDITORIAL MONDAY APRIL 24, 2023

It Is Time for the Grown-Ups To Take Control

April 23, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—Operating out of Ukraine’s Office of the President, the head of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Oleksiy Danilov, reacted today against the possibility of an outbreak of peace: “When the goal of the Russian aggressor remains the same —to destroy Ukraine—recent peace settlement initiatives are pro-russian peacemaking. Don’t try to put us at the negotiating table, give us enough weapons. Weapons are the best mediator and a clear argument for Russia in communication.”

The famous harbinger of the downfall and collapse of ancient Greece is the episode of the “Melian Dialogue,” as recalled by Thucydides. In short, around 418 BC, Athens occupied the minor island of Melos, formerly allied with Sparta. In the negotiation, the powerful Athens cannot accept any peaceful surrender. Why? Because all the other Greek city-states will see Athens be reasonable; and, it turns out that Athens cannot afford that. At the core of their imperial control is fear, and when the glue of fear disappears, imperial Athens disappears. Athens killed every male on the island and enslaved every female. Athens had given up on what had made it respected and powerful, a leader in the Greek world against the imperial Persian invasions. It was now addicted to terror. Athens never recovered.

Danilov’s rantings were part of an epidemic over the weekend. His collaborator, Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andriy Melnyk (notorious as an open admirer of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera) sent out the message to his Western allies that, whatever they’ve up to now, literally ten times more armaments were now required. To start with, Eurofighter and Tornado fighter jets. The U.S., despite tens of billions of dollars of military arms, has only provided about 15% of what is necessary. Nuclear confrontation, anyone?

And the banshees of the “Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum” (FNPF) have gathered to invade Capitol Hill this week, demanding that the U.S. not flinch in full-scale confrontation with Russia. One leader of this “break Russia into pieces” gang, the former Commanding General U.S. Army Europe Gen. Ben Hodges featured a London Telegraph article, “Ukraine can retake Crimea within Months, If We Let It,” subtitled, “There is no need for a diplomatic solution. Russia’s war could soon be brought to a humiliating end.” His colleague, the Hudson Institute’s Luke Coffey offered an op-ed on April 17 in the Wall Street Journal “Ukraine Should Take Crimea from Russia,” subtitled, “It would be a just outcome and serve America’s interests.” Aside from their inability to conceptualize how a headline works, they are in a desperate flight-forward mode.

Finally, consider the juvenile level of the U.S. State Department. This month, when Russia holds the rotating chair of the UN Security Council, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will make an important address to one meeting and chair the next day’s. For several weeks, the State Department has been involved in a pathetically silly game, stringing along the Russian journalists scheduled to cover Lavrov official UN visit, refusing to issue them visas to get to the UN, which is a routine affair. Suggesting all along that the right thing will happen, the State Department left the journalists stranded at the airport, giggling while they played such a silly game with a nuclear power. Lavrov observed: “Of course, I am aware how well our American colleagues are known for such things but I was sure that this time it would be different, considering the focus placed on their ugly behavior. I was mistaken. The country that calls itself the strongest, the smartest, the freest and the most just, has behaved in a cowardly and stupid fashion by showing what its assertions about protecting freedom of speech and access to information are really worth. ... Most importantly, be sure that we will not forget or forgive.”

Russia finds the Schiller Institute’s Helga Zepp-LaRouche a very different Western leader. The authoritative TASS interviewed her, including her conclusion to their question on the Pentagon leaks: “The really disturbing issue is the implication of disinformation about the actual assessment of Ukraine’s chances of ‘winning this war on the battlefield.’ If the U.S. services had a much more pessimistic and actually more realistic view about the inability of the Ukrainians to ‘win,’ but consciously portrayed this estimate differently, then not only were the Ukrainian people sacrificed, but also the allies were lured into a policy of sending more and heavier weapons, which eventually is making them a target of a potential escalation.”

It is time for the grownups to take control.