Is Trump Capable of Stopping War? Or Have You Forgotten Your ‘Pursuit of Happiness’?
June 20, 2026 (EIRNS)—U.S. President Donald Trump signed an agreement with Iran where the very first requirement, prior to negotiations, was that Israel’s attack on Lebanon had to stop and the sovereignty of Lebanon, including its territory, not be violated. Iran, burned more than once by Trump’s proud recklessness of using the pretense of negotiations to launch surprise attacks, is apparently hopeful that Trump has been somewhat matured by the last several weeks - his inability to panic Tehran, his problems with the depletion of armaments and, in particular, what a financial collapse will do for his popularity. Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei made his first public statement on the agreement on June 18, saying that, while he was skeptical, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian convinced him to go along by assuring him that, if Washington began playing games, Tehran would not give in.
In short order, the IDF moved further into Lebanon, Hezbollah hit an Israeli tank, killing 4 soldiers and Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu began his expected ‘screaming toddler’ rampage, with 150 bombing attacks killing at least 47 Lebanese (including at least 7 women and 2 children). Trump called upon Netanyahu, not to pull out of Lebanon, not to stop his assaults, but to refrain from hitting civilians and be more careful. He also told Axios that his relationship with Netanyahu was “good,” but stressed that “we have to keep him a little bit [pause]… sane.” Trump went on to assert that he could keep Israel from attacking Lebanon. “They have a lot of respect for me, and they do as I say.”
As a preface for the next day’s killings, the IDF reported “some 50 projectiles” (IDF’s code name for rocks) were launched at Israeli soldiers, though with no casualties. This presumably necessitated the slaughter of dozens more in Lebanon. So far, the Thursday and Friday ceasefires have each failed to make it through the night.
Yet Trump’s response to Netanyahu’s second day of killings did not come anywhere near telling him that the U.S. had simply frozen financial and military support. Rather, he fired back at Netanyahu by re-posting on Truth Social this morning an article entitled: “Trump holds the cards in Netanyahu’s shaky reelection chances.” Not only is this pathetic, but it is a complete miscalculation. Netanyahu knows that his only chance of being re-elected is, in fact, to double down on perpetual crises and to feed a war frenzy and a blood lust. So, today the IDF provided their double-speak, that they are “committed to the ceasefire agreement,” that is, “in accordance with the directives of the political echelon.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi attempted to shock Trump and VP Vance, by tagging them on his posting of the call by Israel’s Security Minister Ben-Gvir that “All of Lebanon must burn… [We] need to go berserk. To obliterate.” Araghchi added his message: “This is not a rant by a random genocidal lunatic. It’s a public post by the national security minister of the Israeli regime. The genocidal death cult headquartered in Tel Aviv is a threat to all of humanity… Its only interest is permanent war.”
The shock therapy didn’t take. Today, Iran’s Central Command announced that Washington’s flagrant defiance of the agreement meant that they were re-closing the Strait of Hormuz.
The point of this quick summary review is not that Trump is unstable, or in love with his vaunted ‘art of the deal,’ or getting senile. The point is not even that you, dear reader, are trapped on a ship of fools, so that you might curse your fate. Rather, the reality that is closing in upon Trump—that the fragile financial condition of the West has run up against a new determination in the Global South, most glaringly in Tehran’s determined resistance, to no longer submit to such irrational domination—is a reality catching up with the populations of the West. While one might want to believe in the miracle that Trump could stumble his way out of the mess, there are better options.
Trump found the presentations by Brazil’s President Lula da SIlva at the G7 Summit to be “volatile.” It is not clear what Trump might have processed. But Lula hit the G7 leaders on the side of their heads in a loving fashion, telling them, in effect, to grow up. He told them to stop complaining about Chinese “competition,” and join China in investing in the development of Africa and other Global South countries! It will be good for your economies, good for our economies, and good for the world.
He continued: “There’s no point in sitting here around this table complaining about China… When are we going to turn Africa’s 900 million people into consumers? It will happen when they receive the necessary investment and interest from industries in developed countries.” China has merely stepped in to fill “that space left by your inaction.” The hundreds of millions of poor in Latin America, in Africa, in India who want to enjoy an “average standard of consumption” is a gigantic market out there for you. “This will benefit the economies of the United States, Europe, and so many other countries.” He proposed a key action - that President Trump, as the upcoming host of the G20 and with China at the table, put this discussion on the agenda.
He insisted: “What we need to do is change our mindset, look beyond our borders, and recognize that only development will be able to deliver what we want.”
The LaRouche Oasis Plan doesn’t just change the mindset from crazyland and toward reality, but by turning Israel, Iran and the whole region toward solid, exciting economic projects, in the only way that all the populations of the region may find a future for their children, the ability of madmen to stampede their populations around race hatred and fear is removed. So, might it not be time that the childish fears engendered in the West around the name “LaRouche” be put aside, so that you are not left hoping against hope that the learning curve of the President of the United States will outpace his various personality flaws?
Sunday, June 21 is the 360th birthday of the LaRouche-like universal thinker, Gottfried Leibniz. It happens also to be the 250th anniversary of the day Thomas Jefferson, in drafting the Declaration of Independence, called upon Benjamin Franklin for “his more enlarged view of the subject” of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Franklin had been in Germany in pursuit of Leibniz’s thinking on the subject, and Jefferson had had various discussions with Franklin, the leader of the committee to draft the Declaration, before this day. But now, in the midst of the draft, he turned to Franklin to secure that these higher concepts were being handled correctly.
It is a good day to think more deeply than the U.S. President, to work through the idea that happiness consists of the world being created such that the liberty of mankind’s mind to fashion revolutionary scientific solutions is required for sustenance of human life. Prove it to yourself and discover happiness.