PARIS (AP) – For America’s allies and rivals alike, the chaos unfolding during Donald Trump’s last days as president is the logical result of four years of global instability caused by the man who promised to change the way the world will go. the United States looked to change.
From the outside, the United States has never looked so vulnerable – or unpredictable.
Alliances that lasted for generations ran to a breaking point under Trump – from his decision to back out of the Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal, to leaving the World Health Organization amid a pandemic.
And then, by attempting to reverse his loss to Joe Biden, Trump overturned the fundamental principle of democratic elections that the United States has tried – and sometimes succeeded – to export around the world. How long those aftershocks could last is unclear.
“It is one of the greatest tasks of the future for America and Europe – to combat the polarization of society at its root,” said German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. “We can only maintain the belief in togetherness, in democracy as the most humane form of state, and the belief in science and reason if we do it together.”
But in many ways, Europe has already gone further and continued the deal with Iran, negotiating a trade deal with China led by Germany, and organizing global actions to protect the environment.
On the same day, an angry mob stormed the Capitol to try to reverse Biden’s presidential election, a record number of Americans died of the coronavirus. Another recent event also highlighted America’s vulnerability: the cyber-espionage operation continues to run through an untold number of government computers and is attributed to elite Russian hackers.
World leaders who have witnessed the deadly violence in Washington “will have to consider whether these events are an extraordinary event – a” black swan “- or whether these extremist white supremacist groups will continue to exert a significant influence. on the direction of US foreign and domestic policy, rather than withdrawing with the end of the Trump administration, ”the Soufan Group, a global intelligence and security firm, wrote Tuesday.
People tend to see fragile countries “ in terms of war as the biggest problem, rather than violence, and think in terms of state collapse as the biggest problem, rather than states falling apart internally, ” said Rachel Kleinfeld. a scholar on democracy and violence. at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Kleinfeld, like many others, said that the attack on the U.S. Capitol had culminated within weeks, but was years in the making.
And the US’s ability to fight for democracy had been compromised even before the Trump-instigated mob attempted to reverse his election loss. For many, those events were only confirmation.
Opponents, including Russia, China, and Iran, used the violence to question American democracy in general.
In an internal note on the State Department’s “channel of dissent.” obtained by The Associated Press, US diplomats said Trump’s actions had made their job more difficult. “It is critical that we let the world know that in our system no one – not even the president – is above the law or immune from public criticism,” the note said. “This would be a first step to repair damage to our international credibility.”
Trump, however, showed no remorse, saying on Tuesday that his fiery comments to supporters were “completely justified.”
In Iraq, a country still grappling with the controversial legacy of a US-led invasion in the name of democracy, many people followed events in Washington with a mixture of shock and fascination.
Then US President George W. Bush boasted that Iraq would become a model of democracy in a region ruled by dictators. Instead, the country fell into a protracted Sunni-Shia war that killed tens of thousands of people. Although it has an active parliament and regular elections, it is a dysfunctional democracy based on a sectarian power-sharing agreement, where corrupt parties negotiate ministries and posts so they can give jobs to supporters while putting their own pockets.
Ahmad al-Helfi, a 39-year-old Iraqi political cartoonist, said what happened in the Capitol is a blow to the democracy it was trying to bring to Iraq and other countries.
By mobilizing his followers in an effort to reverse the election results, Trump affirmed that instead of exporting democracy to Iraq, America has imported chaos, non-peaceful transfer of power and not accepting election results, “said al-Helfi. .
Anahita Thoms, a German attorney and trade expert who has lived and worked in the United States for years, said last week’s events would indelibly mark America’s image abroad. Thoms is a board member of the Atlantic Bridge, a think tank that promotes cooperation between Europe and the US – the kind of organization founded in the aftermath of World War II when the US helped rebuild the economies of many countries in Western Europe . destroyed by war.
Germany was a country that benefited most from those American efforts in finance and democracy.
Looking ahead, she said US officials may have a harder time promoting democracy abroad.
“The US remains a country that lives up to its democratic values. But this endeavor, which is very strongly presented to the outside world, must not get too many cracks, ”said Thoms. “I think it will take a lot of diplomatic skill to counter those photos.”
The International Crisis Group, which normally focuses on global war zones, wrote its first ever assessment on the risk of election-related violence in the United States in October. Stephen Pomper, who helped work on the report and lives in the DC area, said that in the best of circumstances, the United States could ultimately point to Congress’ decision to resume certification of Biden’s election after the breach as a first step in successfully protecting its democracy.
“Look, we founded these institutions. They became a source of resilience for us. They helped us get through this very difficult period. Let us help you develop the same kind of resilience, ”he said, describing a hypothetical future conversation between the US and a struggling government. “That would be a positive story to tell at some point, but I don’t think the pieces are quite there yet.”
Pope Francis was more optimistic, telling Italian broadcaster Mediaset, “Thank goodness this exploded” in the open because “we’ve been able to see why this is and how it can be remedied.”
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Associated Press writers Kirsten Grieshaber and Frank Jordans in Berlin, Abdulrahman Zeyad in Baghdad, Matt Lee in Washington; and Frank Bajak in Boston contributed.