by David Shavin (EIRNS) — Apr. 09, 2024
April 9, 2024 (EIRNS)—There’s an old Gary Larson cartoon of three fish on a table, looking back at their fishbowl that they just escaped, as somehow the water is on fire. One tells the other two: “Well, thank God we all made it out in time.… ‘Course, now we’re equally screwed.”
After the April 4 discussion between Presidents Biden and Netanyahu, Israel discovered that they could always allow hundreds more aid trucks a day into Gaza—so, at least temporarily, around 700 trucks made it into Gaza in the preceding 48 hours. This is triple last week’s level, and yet not quite 70% of what was normal prior to dealing with massive starvation. It is surely insufficient, but, unlike completely vacuous Israeli claims of the recent past regarding compliance with humanitarian relief, here there’s been 48 hours of actual trucks going into Gaza in close to the ballpark of reality. So, Washington gets to teeter along the edge, as Netanyahu promises not to invade Rafah and its 1.3 million refugees. And people get to dream that perhaps the mass slaughter in Gaza may wind down.
However, Israel had bombed an Iranian consulate building in Damascus, Syria on April 1, and the full expectation in Israel’s now is that they will have a wonderful attack from Iran, which will be the occasion for an expanded regional war amongst Israel and her neighbors—neighbors that have shown remarkable restraint during six months of mass slaughter of fellow Arabs. Is the world, as with Gary Larson’s fish, equally screwed?
Assume, for purposes of argument, that the Biden administration is not simply acting out of desperation, finding that mass slaughter of Gazans lowers their election chances. Assume that there is some glint of actual “well-meaning” intent at play. In this case, does the ridiculously retarded learning curve, in figuring out how to deal with psychotic client state leaders—such as Netanyahu or Zelenskyy—promise much hope in getting ahead of the curve on an expanded regional war in Southwest Asia? What of the quality of what passes for thinking in Western capitals these days.
Of particular mention here is a notable interchange yesterday over what should have been a relatively straightforward matter. Ukraine began launching explosive drones at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) facility on April 7. U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller began what has now become a bizarre ritual, one predicted long ago by Bertrand Russell, of convincing the population, quite routinely, that “snow is black.” Miller to the press: “You have heard from us before our belief that Russia is playing a very dangerous game with its military seizure of Ukraine’s nuclear power plant…. It’s dangerous that they’ve done that, and we continue to call on Russia to withdraw its military and civilian personnel from the plant, to return full control of the plant to the competent Ukrainian authorities, and refrain from taking any actions that could result in a nuclear incident at the plant.”
One might forget for a moment that the nuclear plant is in the Zaporozhye region, one of the four that voted to rejoin Russia. There are a lot of other parts of the region that Russia also controls that they are not planning to hand over. Further, it is a good thing that such a facility has competent specialists taking care of it. The only danger has been Ukrainian military assaults, missiles and drone attacks. And the only actions the Russians have taken that could result in a nuclear incident is that, by staying there and managing the plant, radicals in Kyiv may take the occasion to create a “nuclear incident.” But Kyiv has for over two years used provocations at the ZNPP in attempts to trigger a full-scale response from NATO, trading Kyiv’s proxy status for the front lines of a thermonuclear confrontation.
But that’s old news. The interesting new wrinkle is that Russia’s Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov responded to Miller’s now routine insanity by pointing out the new circumstances. What he tagged as the Western “‘Project Ukraine,’ aimed at an illusory attempt to inflict strategic damage to Russia, has failed. It is extremely important to prevent a situation when Zelensky, in his agony, provokes a radiation disaster.”
This is a very specific situation, beyond a merely unstable head of state. Zelenskyy, “in his agony,” is a case of an end-game scenario; and Israel’s Netanyahu is in a similar mode—plus he has nuclear weapons. The “snow is black” routine is one level of crazy, but at a certain point, it can blow up in one’s face. Are Western leaders capable of defusing the bombs that they have been playing with?
There simply is no other way out of the present situation, but to start with the region actually building its way out of the geopolitical jungle it is presently in, and doing so centered around the “Oasis Plan” of Lyndon LaRouche. It is as simple as “snow is white” to consider, who would attempt to have growing populations live in an arid area of the world, without a focus upon planning for and working out the availability of plenty of fresh, clean water? That quality of thinking is on display this Saturday, April 13, at the key international conference, the Schiller Institute’s online conference to “Build Hope, Build Development, Build Peace.”
When you find yourself burning up inside the fishbowl, or unable to survive outside the fishbowl, it is time to function on a different level, a higher level. As the inimitable wise old rabbi used to say, when confronted with two bad choices, always pick the third.
What else might you be doing this Saturday?