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LaRouche on Iran: Religious War Is an Imperial Tactic

LaRouche on Iran: Religious War Is an Imperial Tactic

Lyndon LaRouche addressed an international webcast on behalf of the LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC) on Feb. 23, 2006 (See InDepth Feature). His spokeswoman Debra Hanania Freeman, who chaired the event, communicated a number of questions to Mr. LaRouche about the crisis in Southwest Asia. The first of these concerned Iran.

Freeman: The first question comes actually from a Democrat who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And he says:

"Mr. LaRouche, in early February, you indicated that a military confrontation with Iran, no matter how limited, would detonate a bomb, that would in fact, serve to blow out the entire financial and monetary system. My question to is really a very simple one: Are Cheney and Company ignorant of this? Or is this, in fact, the intention of the policy?"

LaRouche: Well, Cheney's intention is a very interesting question. It's like speaking of George Bush's intention: I don't know if he knows what the teleprompter means.

Cheney is a stooge. The administration we're dealing with is a creation, nominally, of George Shultz, who, with Condoleezza Rice and the whole pack of them, created this administration around a guy who's not mentally capable of any other kind of job, except President of the United States. And he doesn't have to do that job, because Cheney does it for him.

So, therefore, the question of intention, and reality, in terms of this administration, is very tricky question. What was Cheney aiming at, for example?

So, in the Iran case: The intention does not come from the United States. It comes from—the participation of some people in the United States, in the institutions, influential institutions, but not from the United States: It comes from London. The orchestration of this policy comes from the British foreign intelligence organization, centered in the British Arab Bureau. Now, the British Arab Bureau is an offshoot of the British East India Company office, back in the time when the Empire started. Before the King Georges got to know they were emperors, long before that, there was already a British Empire: It was the empire of the British East India Company, which was actually running the Empire. Particularly Lord Shelburne, in particular, who was running the Empire, back in the 1770s and 1780s; he was the kingmaker. And the British King was actually a flunky for these financier interests, who actually ran the place.

So, at that point, the British Intelligence Service started, formally, in this form, in many ways, as a freemasonic organization, essentially; for example, the French Revolution was run through what Shelburne created as the British Foreign Office, in 1782, and the key figure of the Foreign Office who ran the secret committee, was Jeremy Bentham. And Jeremy Bentham, in a sense "begat" Lord Shelburne—and they created the British intelligence service. Which was created out of the East India Company.

So, in the process, they took a guy called Al-Afghani, for example—who was a crazy-man, but the British picked him and used him—to create the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a key orchestration factor in Middle East politics. And they build up things against that, too.

The key operation that defines this whole area, is the British agreement with the Russians, with Nicholas II, on the partition of the spheres of influence in Iran, where the British took the southern part, and the Russians took the northern part: 1907.

Now, in this process, since then, the British have orchestrated the whole area, orchestrated the operations in the whole area, and controlled them. They have a fellow in the United States, who was formerly head of the administrative section of the British Arab Bureau, and he is the key advisor to Henry Kissinger and others. Now, it's his office, which has shaped this particular aspect of policy, which is running it.

So, this is a British game. And they're using all kinds of things. For example, the British are orchestrating this Iran crisis—not the United States, the British are orchestrating it. Jack Straw, the Foreign Minister of Great Britain, is a key orchestrator of this operation.

So, this is what we're dealing with. And the problem with Americans, especially in public office, is, they refuse to recognize history: the history of the U.S.-British conflict. And the complication that is not taken into account, is the fact that, you have a section in the United States which is more close to the British than they are to the Americans. You look at the entire history of U.S.-British relations, the conflict from the beginning, from after 1763 on, and it's always of this same character. Americans refuse to recognize, that the British are not intrinsically our allies. They're intrinsically our enemies.

But it's not simply shoot-em-up enemy relations. The British realized, after Lincoln's victory over the Confederacy, which was a British operation—the Confederacy—the British realized they could never take the United States by force after that. So therefore, they used indirect methods, including subversion and economic operations. And a sense, they're allies, in which the people who are married are the worst enemies of each other. And they refuse to recognize that they're enemies. They're each trying to kill each other, or get each other killed, and they're pretending to be happily married in between time, when company comes. So, it's this kind of situation.

So, the problem among American politicians, is—the fact is, they refuse to face the fact, that the British oligarchy is generally the source of the enemy, the important enemy of the United States in every operation, including this Iran operation. Once you recognize that fact, then it becomes very easy to understand what's going on.

Look, Britain went into this thing in Iraq. They knew the thing was a cock-up, they set it up. But what did the British do? They took the southern part of Iraq, as their area of military operations. What they did was: This was a setup to get an Iraqi Shi'a versus Sunni operation going. Because, the British interest was to destroy this area of the world, by setting up this kind of fragmentation and chaos. It's a chaos operation.

This is also part of the operation, which Bernard Lewis, the same fellow, set into operation, which is called "the war against Islam." Now, when did the world last have a war against Islam? This was the war of the Crusades, which went on, for about three and a half centuries—the Crusades. So, Bernard Lewis says, "Start a crusade against Islam!" And Bernard Lewis agents, such as Henry Kissinger and Samuel P. Huntington, and also Zbigniew Brzezinski, all got involved with this setting up a permanent war against Islam! A new Crusade! A religious war—akin to the religious war, which the same circles set up, before the British existed, between 1492 with the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, by Torquemada, was the beginning of a period of religious war!

Spain, prior to 1480, had been a very peaceful area of the world, relatively speaking in terms of social relations. It had Christians, Jews, and Muslims, living together, in the same country, and generally with peaceful relations. Yes, there were conflicts, feudal conflicts and so forth, but they would always orchestrate things so the country wasn't destroyed. And there was a lot of cooperation. This was destroyed in 1480, with the introduction of the conception by Torquemada of the Inquisition. And in 1492, the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain—the Moors were actually expelled later, about a century later—was the beginning of a period of religious war, which raged back and forth across Europe until 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia.

So, religious war is a tactic, is an imperial tactic, which is used by certain forces. It's used primarily by the British, who are really the last empire on this planet. It's not an empire of the British people, it's not an empire of the Kingdom of Britain. It's an empire of a certain interest, which is centered in London. It's an international financier interest, which comes into this country, it's like people like Felix Rohatyn. Felix Rohatyn, he's a fascist. He's the guy that put Pinochet into power, in Chile! Not a nice guy, a real worm. An evil character. One of my personal enemies (which is one of his virtues).

So, they run this kind of thing as an international cabal of the old Venetian style. There's no morality, there's no national patriotism involved. There's a certain sense of an interest, a financier interest. And they try to orchestrate the world to fit that.

For example, what are they trying to do, today? What's globalization? Just to get a clear sense of this. And, what do our friends in the Senate think about globalization? They think globalization is a "wave that is coming"? What? A new wave of syphilis? A resistant strain. Or, is it an operation against civilization. Isn't obvious what it is? Instead of saying, "Well, it's a trend, and some people think this, and we gotta go along with popular opinion"—real Sophistry; "we have to go along with popular opinion." "This is the inevitable." Well, your wife is sleeping with ten other men—"but that's inevitable, what can I do about it?" This is typical Sophistry.

So, globalization means, what? It means, simply, that you eliminate the nation-state. You eliminate culture of people. Turn most people in a population of over 6 billion—you want to eliminate the population, you want to reduce it. Your intention is to reduce the population to less than 1 billion people, in a fairly short period of time. How do you do that? By natural methods: Starve them to death! Disease! Bring down the population level—it's been done before. How do you do that? Take away the nation-state. Take production out of the areas where it's occurring, and moving into slave-trade areas, where people work under slave conditions. Take steel production out of the United States and Europe, and put it someplace else. Put it in a country where 70% of the population is starving to death.

And by that process of destroying the infrastructure and the character of a modern economy, you will create mass death.

But some people say, "it's inevitable." It means, they've give up the fight to Satan, so to speak.

So, the problem here, again, is the same thing I responded to earlier: The problem here, on the Iran issue—to me, the Iran issue is a perfectly transparent problem, with complications I may not know, but the general character of the problem I know very well! I know who is doing what to whom, and why! All the main lineaments. Some of details are missing, but I have the main lineaments. Apparently, the people in the Senate don't know this! I know it! I know it, because I'm experienced in this stuff. They should know it. But they don't want to know it! Because, they want to know it, without having to know certain other things they don't want to be caught knowing.

And that's where I come in—often, in these things. I came in on the impossible situation, because I have nothing to fear at my age. What're they going to do me? Kill me? Hah! What d'you think my life expectancy is? C'mon, don't kid me! I'm not going to waste my life, that's the difference. Some people would rather keep their life by wasting it. I would rather keep my life, by not wasting it.

Okay, so, this thing with Iran, it's real. It's essentially an imperial operation, part of an imperial operation. It's complicated, because the instruments being used to orchestrate the situation create a mask of uncertainty and confusion around it. Essentially, the fact of the matter is: The question you deal with, in a case like Iran is different than saying what's going to happen there. What you have to do is this: Say, we know that in Russia, and in many of the important forces in the continent of Europe, there's a determination to avoid a conflict with Iran. Because any conflict with Iran would be insane, because of the implications of what that would lead to. And the financial system is about to blow up, anyway. All you need is an Iran war, and the whole thing blows.

So therefore, the Russians, the Germans, and others in Europe, are determined to have a diplomatic approach to the Iran situation, and believe that a rational solution for the time being, is possible. If you don't try to settle everything, but concentrate on what you have to settle now, and then wait until the situation has calmed down, and get to the other matters later.

I dealt with this, in discussions the other day, here, in Washington.

So, do that. That means that, the key thing you have to do is this: In the United States, and in the thinking of people in the Senate and other institutions, you have to think, that every day that George Bush stays in the Presidency, is a deadly threat to the existence of the United States. Every day that Cheney stays in the Vice Presidency, is an even greater threat to the United States. The optimum is, get Cheney out now, and then the Bush problem will be manageable. Because Cheney is the instrument of George Shultz and his international financier group, which is running this whole operation.

My goal is: Get George Shultz's machine broken! Break his power! Cheney is something in the way. He's sick, a man with two stents behind his legs, this kind of thing, in his condition, with his alcohol history? And the dope he's on to stay alive, and the woman he's married to—his life expectancy is very poor. So, he is only a disease, he's only a menace. Get him out, with the least effort possible. You don't want to kill, you don't want to do anything else—you just want to get him out of there. He's now halfway out, because—you know, he's like a still-birth or something. He's hanging out there, but he's not really going anyplace. Get him out. Once you get him out, you break the power of the machine in there, the tool that's being used, and he's not the source of the problem, he's only a tool of the problem.

Then, suddenly George W. Bush will not find a translator, who speaks his language. George speaks English: He doesn't know any English, he speaks it. The teleprompter shows him how. So, then we have to deal with that.

But we have to deal, fundamentally, with what's behind this. Why did they put a man—look, George Bush is a mental case! He's a dry drunk. He's a mental case, you saw him on television: He can't think! He says words that he uses, because he thinks he understands the words. He has no correspondence to what he's talking about! The man is an idiot! He's a mental case! Why would somebody knowingly put a mental case like George Bush, into the Presidency? That's your problem! George Bush is not the problem.

Who put the cockroaches in your kitchen? Don't blame the cockroaches. Who put them there? Somebody did it for a purpose. The purpose was to destroy the institutions of our government. And that's the way you have to look at it. If you look at it from that standpoint—of who the enemy is, then, instead of saying, "Do we fight this battle, or do we fight this battle, or do we fight that battle?" You say, "We've got to defeat the enemy!"