by: Harley Schlanger

June 8 — Developments of the last weeks have demonstrated that the potential is emerging to bring the world into a new era of peaceful economic progress, centered around the diplomacy and physical economic advances associated with China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI) policy.  The dynamic unleashed by the BRI, which Helga Zepp LaRouche, the chairman of the Schiller Institute, has called the “New Paradigm”, has brought together the leading nations of Asia — China, India, Japan, South Korea — along with Eurasian power Russia, into an alliance which is causing increasing panic among those still yearning for the days when the British Empire’s geopolitics dominated every aspect of international relations.  Many nations in Africa and South and Central America have also joined the BRI, accepting the offer of the Chinese to be part of a “win-win” approach based on mutual benefit.  

Were President Trump freed from the grip of the false narrative of Russiagate, so that he could coordinate fully with this emerging Eurasian economic powerhouse, the era of British-run geopolitical conflicts could be ended.  The whole point of Russiagate, from the beginning, was precisely to constrain Trump from overturning the axioms of British geopolitics, which shaped the “endless war” policies of the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and which Trump promised to end during his election campaign.

The potential of this New Paradigm can be seen in the revival of plans for a summit between Trump and North Korean President Kim Jong-un.  The summit, now scheduled for June 12, could lead to an official end of the Korean War, and possibly eventually to a nuclear-free, unified Korea.  While the Trump administration has been involved directly in talks with representatives of the Kim government, this situation has been moved forward as well through close coordination between Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping, as well as from the involvement of South Korean President Moon, Prime Minister Abe of Japan, and Russian President Putin.  

There are also confirmed reports that planning is underway for a long-delayed Trump-Putin summit, which could address the dangerous tensions between the two nations resulting from a series of recent British provocations.  That these two summits are moving ahead, in spite of the persistent toxicity spawned by the made-in-London Russiagate scandal, and the vicious personal attacks against President Trump, proves that this dynamic can overcome the incessant corruption of Trans-Atlantic politics.  This reality is feeding a growing sense of desperation in the daily activities of legal hitman Robert Mueller, as not only have his dirty “legal” strategies not succeeded in derailing Trump’s diplomatic efforts, but his allies in launching Russiagate may soon find themselves before Grand Juries!

WAR PARTY ATTACKS KOREA SUMMIT

The cancellation was greeted by cheers from anti-Trump Republicans, such as Senator Sasse from Nebraska, who said Trump was right to cancel the summit, as Kim “is a murderous despot and habitual liar.”  Senator Marco Rubio took time out from his anti-Russian, anti-Chinese diatribes to express his view that the cancellation is “100 per cent the right decision,” and Senate Majority leader McConnell agreed.  Victor Cha, who served under George W. Bush as NSC Director of Asian Affairs, and is now at the U.S. unilateralist think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told “Meet the Press” that it is good it was cancelled, as he believes that North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons.  John Brennan, the former CIA director under Obama, who has been exposed as one of the U.S. initiators of the regime change coup against Trump, in collusion with British intelligence networks, told MSNBC on May 10 that Kim Jong-un “has manipulated and, quite frankly, duped Mr. Trump.”  He later said that Trump should not proceed with a summit, as his policy-making process “is fraught with pitfalls as well as potential disasters.”  He added that the only reason Kim has gone this far in negotiations is that he wants “a world stage spotlight…for his ego.”  These views were mirrored in voluminous media stories, editorials, and op eds, which gloatingly attributed the cancellation to Trump’s “inexperience”, his “ego”, and his “rashness” in rushing in unprepared, while insisting that North Korea was never serious about reaching an agreement with the U.S., and that Kim and his regime are “untrustworthy.”   

But Trump did not give up.  On May 28, he announced he would postpone new sanctions indefinitely, hoping this could help restart negotiations.  Later, when those cheering the cancellation demanded harsher sanctions, as part of an unconditional surrender by North Korea, Trump startled reporters when he said, “I don’t even want to use the term ‘maximum pressure’ anymore.”  On June 3, as it began to appear that the summit would be back on again, he said the meeting on June 12 “will be a beginning.  I think we’re going to have a very positive result in the end,” adding that it may take several days, or even follow-up summits, to reach an agreement.  In addition to dropping the demand for immediate “denuclearization” as a precondition for a summit, Trump excluded John Bolton from his team when he met with Kim’s envoy, former spy chief Kim Yong Chol, who delivered a letter which said the North Koreans agree to rescheduling the summit.  And while the anti-Trump politicians and media were railing against a summit, insisting that it would never succeed, a Washington Post-ABC News poll released showed that 56% of Americans were supportive of a Trump-Kim summit.  

In response to these developments, the war party escalated its attack on Trump’s diplomatic efforts.  On June 4, Senate Minority leader Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, released a letter, signed by six other Democratic Senators, aimed at undermining the President.  The letter threatened to block the lifting of sanctions on North Korea if an accord is reached between Trump and Kim, unless “five standards” are met in the accord.  These include full and complete “denuclearization”, and elimination of all chemical and biological weapons; end the production and enrichment of nuclear materials; scrap its ballistic missile program; allow robust inspection; and that these must be permanent conditions.  Schumer stated that not only would Trump’s failure to achieve these demands show that “he will have been bested at the negotiating table again,” but that he “should be ready for Democrats and hopefully Republicans to push back” against an agreement

This attack is deliberately designed to sabotage the summit, by planting doubts in the minds of the North Korean negotiators that, if they do make concessions to get an agreement, it could still be rejected by the Congress.  The irony here is that many of these naysayers are the same people who criticized Trump last year for his hard line against Kim, saying that his toughness could provoke nuclear strikes against the U.S.  Now that a peace process is advancing, they are attacking him for not being tough enough!  Contrast this attitude with the comment of President Putin, who commended Trump, saying his decision to go ahead with the summit is “brave and mature”, that he expects a “positive outcome” and offered to do all he could to help.

DIPLOMACY, NOT SANCTIONS

Many of those trying to sabotage the opportunity for peace on the Korean peninsula have been at the forefront of disrupting Trump’s attempt to improve cooperative relations with Russia and China.  Schumer, along with the Putin-hating Senator Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, joined with Pro-war Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham to push through a bill in July 2017, the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which targeted Russia and Iran, as well as North Korea.   Trump reluctantly signed this on August 2, 2017, saying it is “seriously flawed”, but knowing that if he used a veto against it, the veto would be overturned, as support for the bill was overwhelming: 419 to 3 in the House, and 98-2 in the Senate!

The new, more punitive sanctions against Russia in CAATSA were a direct product of the Russiagate fraud, intended to punish Russia for the still-unproven accusations that the Russians “meddled” in the presidential election in favor of Trump.  This was a part of a campaign against Trump from the day of his election.  Schumer said on January 22, 2017 — just two days after Trump was inaugurated — that if he lifted sanctions already in place against Russia, “That would be horrible,” adding that McCain would back him in opposing Trump.  McCain chimed in, saying “We need more sanctions against Russia.  We should not relax them.”  Following the vote, Lindsey Graham praised Schumer, saying “He was very, very helpful.”  Indications of the grip of the anti-Russia, pro-war faction over both parties were comments by Schumer and senior Republican Senator Mike Crapo.  Schumer said “there are issues [such as the sanctions bill] when the Republicans are closer to us than to him”, meaning Trump, while Crapo said, “Many of us on both sides of the aisle feel the United States needs to be much stronger in response to Russia.”  Rubio, who takes his talking points from the leading neocon think tanks, repeatedly refers to Putin as a “thug”, a “criminal” and a “murderer”; he is now trying to stop Chinese students from coming to the U.S. to study, and U.S. scientists from collaborating with their Chinese counterparts, claiming that many of them are spies!

Even before the inauguration, Schumer delivered a threat to Trump, demanding that he submit himself to the “consensus” of the Obama intelligence officials about Russia.  He called Trump “really dumb” for rejecting this consensus.  “Let me tell you,” he warned the President-elect, “You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” 

Thus, instead of diplomacy, of trying to find common ground for joint action, as Donald Trump promised he would do, by rejecting the approach of his predecessors Bush and Obama, who committed the U.S. to the British dogma of geopolitics, of using military power to force nations to subordinate their interests to those of a London-Wall Street banking and financial cartel, the war party continues to mobilize to prevent a new era of peace and prosperity from being consolidated.  But all the huffing and puffing and irrational threats of the neocons does not change the reality, that the future of mankind is now being shaped by the alliance emerging around an “Asian century”.  Helga Zepp LaRouche has been emphasizing that the dynamic underway in Eurasia is “unstoppable,” as the alternative, of surrendering to the imperial doctrines of the geopoliticians will mean more war, including possibly nuclear war, and is unthinkable.  

It is therefore long overdue that geopolitical doctrines be dumped, and their advocates left to their blubbering on the sidelines, so that the dynamic of the New Paradigm can be allowed to create truly human conditions for all of mankind.