The sudden flare up between India and Pakistan could not have occurred at a more dangerous moment. The two nuclear powers moved quickly from a war of words, following a deadly terror attack on tourists in Indian Kashmir, to troop mobilizations, then to military attacks, with casualties. With neither side backing down, the threat of an escalation to nuclear strikes is a real possibility. The Chinese and the Russians are engaged in urgent diplomatic initiatives, along with other nations of the Global South, to lower the temperature, but bellicose language dominates what passes for dialogue between the two nations.
This confrontation comes when efforts to resolve the conflicts in Ukraine, which increasingly pits NATO against Russia, and Southwest Asia, where Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu has announced an escalation in Gaza, seem stubbornly out of reach. In the absence of a decisive international intervention toward peace, either of these hot spots could explode into full-blown regional wars, which could go out of control.
The puppet regime of Zelensky has made terroristic threats against the celebration in Moscow on May 9 to commemorate the defeat of the Nazis eighty years ago, with explicit support from European Union (EU) War Hawks, who have issued threats against European leaders who wish to participate in the Victory parade. The Eurocrats will instead march in Kiev, to showcase their support for the regime there, which continues to deny the role of pro-Nazi Banderites and related Ukrainian "ultra-nationalists" in their military and security forces.
As for the continuing murderous operations of the Netanyahu regime, the announcement following a May 5 cabinet meeting to deploy the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to "recapture" Gaza and keep it under military control has been largely ignored by western governments. The silence has encouraged racist genocidalists such as Netanyahu and his cabinet members Smotrich and Ben-Givr to boast that they will unleash the IDF to ethnically cleanse Gaza, smirking as they proclaim that they are offering the Palestinians a choice, to leave by their free will -- or to die from bombings, artillery fire, starvation or disease.
WHERE IS THE PEACEMAKER TRUMP?
A big question looming above these crises is what is the former Sole Hegemon, the United States, doing to cool things down? What is the self-proclaimed peacemaker Donald Trump doing? And what are the former so-called democratic allies of the U.S. in the EU doing to seek peaceful resolution in the crisis zones?
One can dispense with Europe quickly. Under the ostensible direction of the UK's Starmer, France's Macron, the new lame duck German Chancellor Merz, and the belligerent team of Von der Leyen and Kallas, they are clamoring for a trillion Euro-plus military buildup to fight Russia, even as their economies are being rapidly deindustrialized and infrastructure is breaking down -- with the Iberian Peninsula's blackout last week an example of the economic and energy incompetence of the "Green transition"; and there is a growing rebellion among the citizens against most governments and leading parties. That the EU's unelected leadership rejected participation in the celebration of the victory over the Nazis due to their Russophobia, and instead are joining hands with the neo-Nazis in Ukraine, adds to the picture of the degenerate evil of the servants of corporate oligarchs controlling Brussels.
They are not acting to protect the people of Europe from a non-existent Russian threat, but to consummate the imperial dream of the geopoliticians of Milner's Round Table, of breaking apart Russia and looting its raw materials. This is the wet dream motivating NATO's war hawks since the peaceful dissolution of the USSR in 1992, and was the driver behind the brutal "shock therapy" policy of the 1990s, and the continuing eastward expansion of NATO. This same goal was pursued by western intelligence agencies through sponsorship of the Maidan regime change coup, which opened the door to covert British and U.S. military operations against Russia in Ukraine beginning in 2014, as was recently exposed in major articles in the New York Times and the London Times.
Perhaps the one force which could prevent a tragic outcome from these hotspots is the power of the U.S. Presidency, in the hands of Donald Trump. In contrast to the Biden administration and its European puppets, Trump is seeking to normalize relations with Moscow, with his envoy Steve Witkoff in ongoing talks with Putin and his team. In the absence of a quick settlement -- largely stalled by Europe's resistance and Zelensky's rejection of a May 7 to 10 ceasefire -- Trump has been letting off steam about disappointment with Putin. Instead, if he wishes to achieve a legacy of a man of peace, he should stop ignoring the real problem -- the European corporate war hawks full support for Zelensky, and the treacherous neocons in both parties in the U.S. Congress and within his cabinet, who act on behalf of the Military-Industrial Corporatist Complex -- and engage in real diplomacy with Presidents Putin and Xi.
THE IRAN ISSUE
Trump partially clamped down on the pro-Netanyahu faction in his national security team, firing National Security Director Mike Waltz for his overt fraternization with Bibi. (How Waltz, who was a former adviser to the Trump-hating Dick Cheney, was given such an important position, reflects the problem the President has with the infiltration of his team by opponents from the "Deep State.") Trump also told Netanyahu that the U.S. would not join Israel in an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Yet, when the Israeli cabinet announced Monday plans to militarily capture all of Gaza and remain there indefinitely, there was no public protest from Trump. Further, in the midst of fragile negotiations for a new nuclear deal with Iran, his lack of clarity undermines the potential for a deal.
In the last days, he has made contradictory statements about his intentions. On May 4, when asked if the U.S. will allow Iran to have a limited nuclear enrichment program for civilian energy use, he said, "We haven't made that decision yet. We will." Later that day, he said the aim of negotiations is to achieve "total disarmement" of an Iranian nuclear capability. In the next breath, he said he is open to allowing Iran to pursue a civilian nuclear energy program. Three days later, he added to the confusion, insisting that Iran must turn over its centrifuges and enriched uranium, or they will "get bombed...it's that simple." In concluding this exchange, he stated that there are only two options for Iran's centrifuges: either we "blow them up nicely or blow them up viciously."
Such comments, which are both contradictory and threatening, make a compromise agreement with Iran more difficult. They may reflect an effort to maintain an uneasy balance within his administration. The firing of Michael Waltz as National Security Adviser was due to Trump's anger at Waltz going behind his back in making promises of U.S. support to Netanyahu. Waltz was not the only anti-Iran hawk inside the administration, and many Congressional Republicans are loathe to accept any deal with Iran. Typical is the outspoken hawk, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who tweeted on May 6, “To my friends in Israel, do what you have to do to protect your airspace and your people. It is long past time to consider hitting Iran hard. It wouldn’t take much to put Iran out of the oil business.”
At the same time, Vice-President Vance said the administration is open to considering a civilian nuclear energy program; Witkoff went further, saying uranium enrichment could be acceptable as long as it is capped, as it was in the 2015 JCPOA agreement reached by Obama with Iran.
In this context, it is worth noting that Trump reported favorably on a deal brokered by Oman between the U.S. and the Houthis in Yemen. The U.S. agreed to end strikes against them, in return for their pledge to stop attacks on U.S. ships in the Red Sea. There are reports that Iran applied pressure on the Houthis to obtain their agreement, which Trump described as "a good outcome with the Houthis."
A NEW PARADIGM FOR PEACE
In the midst of these complex situations, what is needed from Trump is an unambiguous commitment to peace, starting with cutting off the flow of arms and aid to Zelensky and Netanyahu, and a ruthless dismissal of all neocons in his administration who put support for Ukraine and Israel's ahead of a serious drive for peace. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, one of Trump's strongest supporters, warned him that his base will leave him if he backs away from his pledge to end the permanent wars of G.W. Bush, Obama and Biden, and she is not alone. This first step must be combined with immediate in-person consultation with Putin and China's Xi Jinping, to consolidate the move away from the collapsing Unipolar order, to a new strategic and development architecture. Such a summit would also provide a basis to reach a common agreement on replacing the present broken-down globalist trading system without exacerbating tensions by arbitrary imposition of tariffs.
It would facilitate this shift greatly if the President would commit himself and his administration to study the draft by Helga Zepp-LaRouche of Ten Principles of a New Paradigm, and replace the present zig-zag approach with higher principles of statecraft. This approach offers a clear path to sustainable peace, incentivized by mutual benefit, in the best tradition of U.S. foreign policy.
