The 144th consecutive meeting of the International Peace Coalition convened amid profound global tumult, underscoring the necessity of uniting the international peace movement. Moderator Anastasia Battle, alongside co-moderator Dennis Speed, opened the forum by imploring participants to disseminate the dialogue across diverse philosophies, religions, cultures, and nationalities. Emphasizing the critical nature of the current geopolitical juncture, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute and initiator of the coalition, delivered the strategic overview.

“There are circumstances beyond their control”

Zepp-LaRouche issued a stark warning that the world is on the precipice of a full-fledged economic and financial crisis, entering the seventh day of a rapidly expanding war. The economic fallout is already materializing, with Gulf nations halting production as the Strait of Hormuz is practically blockaded. Consequently, the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and oil has been crippled. Qatar, invoking force majeure, has explicitly signaled that these disruptions stem from circumstances entirely outside their jurisdiction, sending global energy prices skyrocketing.

Furthermore, the Gulf states—including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar—have initiated a comprehensive review of their massive overseas investments. These sovereign wealth funds, previously heralded as a crowning achievement of the Donald Trump administration, are now being leveraged to pressure the US president into a diplomatic pivot. Russian sovereign wealth fund executive Kirill Dmitriev pointedly questioned German leadership, noting their impending lack of energy resources while German opposition leader Friedrich Merz continues to blindly back the unfolding military operations.

Despite the rapid escalation, Zepp-LaRouche dismantled the western media narrative of a swift, decisive victory for the US and Israel. Iran has executed an unprecedented and highly effective campaign against US defense architecture, systematically destroying radar infrastructure associated with both the THAAD and Patriot systems. This tactical blinding of US forces leaves incoming drones and hypersonic Khorramshahr-4 missiles entirely undefended. The depletion of western interceptor stockpiles is being outpaced by the sheer volume of the assault, with the US expending five days’ worth of Tomahawk missile production in merely the first 72 hours of the conflict.

Zepp-LaRouche expressed grave concern over the deep-seated religious fundamentalism driving the military apparatus. Citing US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s barbaric assertion that the conflict was never intended to be a fair fight, she highlighted reports from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation indicating that over 100 US Army officers have inquired about internal briefings linking the war to biblical end-times prophecy and positioning Trump as an anointed figure. She issued an urgent call for international parliaments to investigate this profound religious irrationality currently commanding the world’s most lethal military machine.

“Total destruction of Iran”

The assault’s criminality is glaringly evident in the total suspension of international law. Zepp-LaRouche condemned a double-tap strike on an Iranian school that massacred 180 girls between the ages of 7 and 12, an indisputable war crime designed to obliterate first responders. Domestically, the US War Powers Act was narrowly defeated, yet public support for the war among Trump’s MAGA base has plummeted to a mere 29%. However, relying on midterm elections is a fatal miscalculation given the imminent threat of total war. Reports from the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv confirm that Israel views this as the endgame, explicitly seeking the absolute destruction of Iran without subsequent rounds of engagement.

Concurrently, the US is reportedly courting Kurdish factions in Iraq to open a new ground flank in northwestern Iran, an invasion scenario Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed Tehran is fully prepared to repel. Trump’s insistence on unconditional surrender, coupled with his unilateral rejection of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son as a successor, underscores a breathtaking disintegration of the global order. Singular voices of moral clarity, such as Pope Francis and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, have warned of an irreparable abyss where justice has capitulated to brute force, a sentiment echoed by Pax Christi. Aside from Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, the collective west’s complicity will irreversibly haunt its global standing, alienating the BRICS nations and the Global South. The targeting of Iran strategically disrupts the Belt and Road Initiative and the International North-South Transport Corridor, necessitating an urgent pivot back to the UN Charter and a new international security and development architecture.

“Not a single credible report of even 100 anti-government protesters”

Senator Richard Black, a decorated Vietnam War combat veteran and former Virginia state legislator, delivered a searing critique of the ongoing military campaign. Having sustained wounds and witnessed the battlefield deaths of his radiomen, Black underscored his profound reverence for US troops while denouncing the bellicose manipulation of Christian faith to justify the Iranian conflict. He noted that Operation Epic Fury was fundamentally predicated on the flawed assumption that US bombardment would trigger a joyous, popular uprising against the Iranian government.

Instead, an exhaustive analysis reveals a complete absence of domestic rebellion, with zero credible reports of even nominal anti-government protests. Black highlighted the universal psychological reality: populations inherently unite against foreign aggression. The most potent pressure point remains the 21-mile-wide Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint within Iranian waters that facilitates 20% of global oil transit. The ensuing blockade guarantees that oil prices will violently exceed $100 per barrel, inflicting devastating economic damage on heavily dependent US allies such as South Korea, India, China, and a wholly import-reliant Japan. Europe’s addiction to LNG—exacerbated by the US destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline—further compounds the crisis.

While the administration has floated deploying US destroyers to escort oil tankers, Black warned that any significant American casualties would instantly shatter the already tepid domestic support for the war. Trial balloons regarding boots on the ground—floated by Trump and Representative James Comer—ignore the geographical and typographical immensity of Iran, which dwarfs the primitive terrain of Afghanistan. An invasion driven by demands for unconditional surrender threatens a decades-long “forever war,” resulting in the virtual eradication of Iranian civilization and catastrophic global costs.

The tactical reality resembles a massive chess game where Iran possesses the missile depth to outlast western stockpiles, while the US and Israel leverage absolute air dominance to hunt mobile launchers. Black observed that the recent assassination of aging Iranian leadership, including the relatively moderate 86-year-old Ayatollah Khamenei, resulted from fatal security lapses during deceptive peace negotiations—a hallmark of Israeli military strategy. However, their elimination paves the way for a hardened, dynamic, and less gullible younger generation to assume command. Black concluded with a stark warning against US hubris stemming from the Venezuela operation, cautioning against a covert alliance with captured ISIS and al-Qaeda operatives funneled from Syria into Iraq to subvert the Iranian state.

“The memory is revolutionary”

Former Mexican Congresswoman Maria de los Angeles Huerta forcefully argued that analytical diagnosis must rapidly transition into actionable, coordinated mobilization to halt the global machinery of war and the unchecked impunity of predatory elites. She outlined five ambitious, historical imperatives to counter the fascist elements orchestrating the crisis.

First, Huerta proposed a global citizen investigation network to audit the financial DNA of the war machine. This requires exposing the banks, corporate entities, and fiscal paradises funding the armaments industry and networks of exploitation, ultimately publishing an accessible list of public shame akin to the Epstein logs. Second, she called for massive global campaigns to economically isolate these institutions, utilizing alternative international communication networks to strip away the darkness protecting elite profits.

Third, recognizing that powerful actors deploy armies of lawyers and PR firms to bury their crimes under disinformation, Huerta established that citizen memory must be the revolutionary counter-force. She advocated for a global observatory featuring a “library of infamy” to meticulously archive evidence—from the Gaza massacres to elite trafficking networks—ensuring unhindered access for journalists and victims while initiating relentless legal and political battles against complicit structures. Fourth, she urged the mobilization of multilateral organizations directly from the grassroots base, applying immense pressure through coordinated, visible, non-violent global actions, including symbolic protests and cultural performances outside complicit financial institutions. Finally, Huerta demanded the creation of a robust protection network to safeguard peace defenders from isolation and retaliation.

“Transform our region in a battlefield”

Dr. Beatriz Bissio, associate professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, contextualized the crisis within the strict parameters of international law, declaring the aggression against Iran wholly illegal and unprovoked. Prior to the attacks, mediators in Oman had confirmed substantive progress in diplomatic negotiations. The assault, devoid of rational justification, serves Israel’s ambition to eliminate a systemic adversary to its expansionism and a staunch defender of the Palestinian people. Echoing UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, Bissio identified Gaza not as an exception, but as a methodological blueprint utilized by the US and Israel to eradicate all resistance to imperial plans.

Bissio highlighted an ignored open letter sent to President Trump by Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor, a prominent Emirati billionaire. Al Habtoor fiercely questioned the legitimacy of Trump’s unilateral decision, demanding to know who authorized the US to drag the Gulf into an unwanted conflict and transform the region into a battlefield. The letter exposes deep-seated frustration among US allies who host American military bases, viewing their national sovereignty as utterly bypassed and mourning the destruction of highly capitalized regional peace initiatives.

As geopolitical immobility shatters, revealing rapid and unprecedented realignments, the domestic stability of the US is also fraying, with rumblings of potential impeachment tied to disastrous midterm prospects. Concretely, Bissio fully endorsed Huerta’s five-point framework and proposed two immediate initiatives. She advocated for an international boycott demanding the cancellation of the June 17 FIFA World Cup across the US, Canada, and Mexico, arguing such a celebration is irreconcilable with the threat of a nuclear event. Furthermore, she insisted that the United Nations must be permanently removed from New York, citing the Secretary-General’s paralysis and the symbolic necessity of establishing a new security paradigm entirely outside the jurisdiction of the United States.

“Humanity is fighting unhumanity”

French intelligence strategist Francois Martin framed the conflict not as a clash between the US and Iran, or the Global North against the Global South, but as an existential battle where humanity itself is fighting unhumanity. He cited the calculated assassination of 165 Iranian girls, emphasizing that such strikes are never operational mistakes. When an aggressor strips a population of its human essence—reducing them to animals or “sinners”—the deliberate slaughter of children becomes a prerequisite to prevent the maturation of future combatants.

Martin pointed to a second atrocity: the sinking of the Dana, an unarmed vessel returning from a peace congregation in Sri Lanka hosted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The ship, reportedly carrying American personnel alongside civilians, was annihilated without warning upon exiting Indian waters—an act Martin categorized as pure assassination.

Despite the bloodshed, Martin predicts a brief conflict, driven by logistical exhaustion rather than moral awakening. He assessed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu manipulated Trump with false intelligence claiming Iran was unarmed and highly fragile. Instead of a lucrative victory, Trump has thrust his administration into a swarm of wasps. Without the luxury of time to fabricate congressional justifications—as was done for the Iraq War—and facing an imminent depletion of western munitions alongside soaring $90-per-barrel oil prices, Martin anticipates Trump will soon declare a hollow, rhetorical victory and hastily retreat, abandoning Israel on the front lines. He concurred with diplomat Chaz Freeman that Russia and China are maneuvering the US into a position where it must abandon neo-colonialism in favor of a predictable, multipolar world order.

“Pushed toward the loss of our very existence”

Lebanese sociologist Bassam El Hashim, identifying as a Lebanese Christian, dismantled the prevailing Anglo-Saxon media narrative surrounding Hezbollah. He detailed how the organization is not a fundamentalist terror cell, but a necessary resistance movement forged organically between 1982 and 1985 in direct response to the brutal Israeli invasion and occupation of Beirut.

El Hashim described Lebanon as a subjugated US protectorate, managed from a sprawling, 2,000-square-meter American embassy housing up to 7,000 intelligence personnel, operating in tandem with US naval and air bases. This apparatus exerts crushing pressure on the Lebanese government, dictating domestic crackdowns and nullifying state legitimacy. The populations of southern Lebanon, relentlessly displaced and massacred by Israeli militias since 1948, had no recourse but armed defense. While Iran provided crucial initial funding and training post-1979, Hezbollah now operates with profound strategic independence.

The resumption of hostilities is entirely Israeli-manufactured, El Hashim argued. Following a November 2024 ceasefire that Hezbollah scrupulously maintained, Israel spent the subsequent 16 months systematically violating the accord, bombing villages, and forcibly displacing Lebanese citizens northward. He warned that Netanyahu’s display of the “Greater Israel” map at the UN General Assembly signals a definitive intent to subjugate the entire region. Unable to conquer the Arab world militarily, the US-Israeli axis employs deliberate subversion, utilizing regime change and sectarian fragmentation—as seen recently in Syria and Iraq—to ignite civil wars, positioning the Lebanese Armed Forces against Hezbollah to fracture the nation from within.

Concluding the marathon session, Zepp-LaRouche introduced breaking, though unconfirmed, intelligence that Iran has thus far utilized only its antiquated missile inventory, which successfully penetrated the Iron Dome. Tehran is reportedly preparing to deploy an untouched arsenal of advanced, hypersonic weaponry, indicating the tragedy is far from its climax.

In a final, urgent directive, Zepp-LaRouche demanded that western politicians and parliamentarians be forced to publicly address the massacre of the Iranian schoolchildren. The deafening silence from European capitals—save for Spain—exposes an intolerable double standard that strips the collective west of its remaining moral credibility. Condemning the simultaneous strangulation of Cuba, the persecution of Venezuela, and the military operations in Gaza, she warned that this unchecked complicity will trigger a historic geopolitical blowback, calling on the global citizenry to ruthlessly implement the proposals laid out by Huerta and Bissio to forge a new paradigm of international justice.