The Clash of Civilizations Is a Geopolitical Myth

At this point, there is an acute danger that the “ethnic cleansing”, depopulation operation underway in Gaza will lead to a region-wide war in Southwest Asia, which would rapidly involve all major powers, in one way or another. The United States, under the pretext of supporting Israel’s unconditional right to self-defense, has deployed a huge military force in the Eastern Mediterranean, made up of 30,000 American military personnel, and two aircraft carrier strike groups, both of which are equipped with nuclear weapons. According to mainstream media sources, Washington is scrambling to deploy more military systems in (still) allied countries in the region and areas it de facto controls in Syria and Iraq.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, as we reported last week, announced on Oct. 18, that the Russian air forces would begin permanent patrols over the Black Sea, to monitor activity in the Mediterranean, and elsewhere. Those aircraft are armed with the new hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, that have a range of over 1,000 km and are nuclear-capable.

The implications of such a military build-up go well beyond the conflict in Gaza. In fact, U.S. fighter jets hit two sites in eastern Syria in the night of Oct. 26, said to be associated with Iran. There is much speculation about strikes on the Hezbollah in Lebanon, and even more dangerously, on Iran itself, which is accused of financing and arming Hamas as well as the Hezbollah. The drumbeat for confrontation with Tehran is growing louder, including from the financial interests behind the Wall Street Journal and The Economist, as well as the from neocons in the U.S., the UK, and Western Europe. They claim that Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” is inevitable. But if such an escalation occurs, all bets are off. Certainly, the existence of Israel would be jeopardized, which many Israelis in the opposition recognize and have warned against.

And yet, just as the situation in Ukraine is becoming increasingly desperate for NATO, the West is refusing to push for a negotiated settlement there, or in the Middle East. Behind this suicidal course is the collapse of the international financial system, based in the City of London and Wall Street, on which the power of the “unipolar world” is built.

On the other hand, we have the emergence of the “non-West”, otherwise called the “Global Majority”, that demands the right to development and the end of colonialism. They have rallied around the expanded BRICS group (three of the six new members being in South-West Asia), and around China’s Belt and Road Initiative. This offers a way out of the crises, emphatically including for Israel, which could make an invaluable contribution to the economic and technological development of the entire region in the framework of a stable two-state solution. That, in turn, calls for the approach laid out by Lyndon LaRouche in his 1975 Oasis Plan and its several updates, including the World Land-Bridge.