Stewart Battle- Iran’s President Pezeshkian called the assassination of Khamenei a “declaration of war against Muslims.” Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe”Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget / falls drop by
drop upon the heart, / until, in our own despair, / against our will, /
comes wisdom / through the awful grace of God.”
This quote from Aeschylus’ play Agamemnon
was recited from memory by Robert F. Kennedy Sr. the night Martin
Luther King Jr. was assassinated, April 4, 1968. Kennedy had traveled
into the ghetto of Indianapolis to speak to a gathering of black
Americans, despite recommendations from his security and police teams
not to go. Kennedy ended his short remarks to the gathering by saying:
“Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago:
to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.
Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and
for our people.”
That night, there were violent riots in 110 cities across the United States—but there were no riots in Indianapolis.
Rather
than heed the wise words of true statesmen and historians who have come
before, U.S. President Donald Trump has shown that he does not possess
such “painful wisdom” learned through “the awful grace of God.” His
initiation of a full-blown regime-change war against Iran, and the
ensuing unleashing of a cauldron of violence, now threatens the early
destruction of human civilization.
Reactions and counterreactions
are spreading across Southwest Asia as a whole. Iran is retaliating not
only against Israeli and American targets, but also against targets in
their Gulf neighbors, and Saudi Arabia has itself threatened to become
involved in the counterattacks against Iran. At the same time, protests
against American embassies and military bases have erupted across at
least Pakistan, Iraq, and India, while Iran’s President Masoud
Pezeshkian called the assassination of Khamenei a “declaration of war
against Muslims.” Passions are becoming inflamed. To top it off, Iran
has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, with multiple hits reported
on oil tankers in the vicinity, and all major shipping companies have
announced they won’t transit the Strait.
Pope Leo on Sunday, March
1, said the series of events could become “a tragedy of enormous
proportions,” and appealed to all parties “to assume the moral
responsibility to stop the spiral of violence before it becomes an
irreparable abyss!”
President Trump and other glib members among
the Epstein class are promising that all is going according to plan and
the Iranian government will be toppled within mere days. However, Iran’s
response appears to be stronger than expected, with announcements on
March 1 that nine Israelis and three American servicemembers have been
killed, as well as many others in Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the
U.A.E. There are also reports questioning how long the U.S. and Israel
can sustain such an intense conflict requiring huge numbers of
interceptor missiles, with some saying supplies may only last 1-2 weeks.
No matter what happens, such an arrogant and deranged approach will
lead to the end of the world one way or another, and an alternative must
urgently be found.
Exactly what such an alternative policy must look like will be taken up in a powerful way at EIR’s
Emergency Roundtable, starting at 8 a.m. Eastern Time on March 2.
Leading voices from around the world will be convening to chart a
pathway toward survival, at a moment when the world is staring down the
barrel of absolute destruction.
As Kennedy acknowledged, the
pathway to peace can never be imposed through force, but rather requires
an almost spiritual reckoning with oneself and the nature of mankind. Join the roundtable and don’t sit out this vital period of history.