Following the storming of the US Capitol, President Donald Trump is desperate for an exit ramp that will preserve both his fragile ego and his future political influence. Unfortunately, that conundrum leaves him with few options other than to foment even more chaos both at home and abroad.
New York – Whether the storming of the US Capitol was an attempted coup, an insurrection, or an assault on democracy is merely a question of semantics. What matters is that the violence was aimed at derailing a legitimate transition of power for the benefit and at the behest of a dangerous madman. President Donald Trump, who has never hidden his dictatorial aspirations, should now be removed from power, barred from public office, and prosecuted for high crimes.
After all, the events of January 6 may have been shocking, but they were not surprising. I and many other commentators had long warned that the 2020 election would bring civil unrest, violence, and attempts by Trump to remain in power illegally. Beyond his election-related crimes, Trump is also guilty of a reckless disregard for public health. He and his administration bear much of the blame for the massive COVID-19 death toll in the United States, which accounts for only 4% of the global population but 20% of all coronavirus deaths.
Once a beacon of democracy, rule of law, and good governance, the US now looks like a banana republic that is incapable of controlling either a contagious disease – despite spending more on health care per capita than any other country – or mobs incited by a wannabe dictator. Authoritarian leaders around the world are now laughing at the US and scoffing at American critiques of others’ political misrule. As if the damage done to US soft power over the past four years was not immense enough, Trump’s failed insurrection has undermined America’s standing even more.
Worse, although President-elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated in about a week, that is plenty of time for Trump to create more mayhem. Right-wing militias and white supremacists are already planning more acts of protest, violence, and racial warfare in cities across the US. And strategic rivals such as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea will be looking to exploit the chaos by sowing disinformation or launching cyber-attacks, including potentially against critical US infrastructure.
At the same time, a desperate Trump may try to “wag the dog” by ordering a strike – perhaps with a tactical nuclear warhead – on Iran’s main nuclear facility in Natanz, on the grounds that it is being used to enrich uranium. Far from this being out of the question, the Trump administration has already held drills with stealth bombers and fighter jets – loaded, for the first time, with tactical nuclear weapons – to signal to Iran that its air defences are no defence at all.
No wonder Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi felt the need to reach out to the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff to discuss steps to prevent a nuclear strike by the Dr Strangelove in the White House. Whereas an unwarranted order to launch a nuclear attack on a target with a large civilian population would be rejected by the military as obviously “illegal,” an attack on a military target in a non-populated area might not be, even if it would have dire geopolitical consequences. Moreover, Trump knows that both Saudi Arabia and Israel would tacitly support an attack on Iran (indeed, the US may avail itself of Saudi logistical and ground support to carry one out, given the shorter range of nuclear-armed fighter jets).
The prospect of an attack on Iran may give Vice President Mike Pence the pretext he needs to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump from power. But even if this were to happen, it would not necessarily be a win for democracy and the rule of law. Trump could – and likely would – be pardoned by Pence (as Richard Nixon was by Gerald Ford), allowing him to run for president again in 2024 or be a kingmaker in that election, given that he now controls the Republican party and its base. Removing Trump with the promise of a pardon may be a Faustian deal that Pence strikes with Trump.
Because the self-pardon that Trump has been considering might not pass constitutional muster, it is reasonable to assume that he will be groping around for other creative outs. He cannot simply resign and allow Pence to issue a pardon, because that would make him look like a “loser” who accepted defeat (the worst insult in Trump’s egomaniacal lexicon). But if the president were to order an attack on Iran and then become a (pardoned) martyr, he could both preserve his base and avoid accountability. By the same token, Trump cannot risk being impeached (again), because that would open up the possibility of his being disqualified from holding office in the future. By this reasoning, he has every incentive to go out with a bang and on his own terms.
If this all sounds like the final days of Nero “fiddling while Rome burned,” that’s because it is. The decay of the American empire appears to be hastening rapidly. Given how politically, socially, and economically divided the US is, four years of sound leadership under Biden will not be enough to reverse the damage that has been done. Most likely, the Republicans will do everything they can to sabotage the new administration, as they did with former President Barack Obama.
Even before the election, US national-security agencies were warning that domestic right-wing terrorism and violence would remain the primary home-grown threat to the US. With Biden in office, this risk will be higher still. For the last four years, heavily armed white-supremacist militias have been kept relatively at bay by dint of the fact that they had an ally in the White House. But once Trump is gone, the groups whom he has instructed to “stand back and stand by” will not simply accept Democratic control of the presidency and Congress. Trump, operating from Mar-a-Lago, will continue to incite the mob with more lies, conspiracy theories, and falsehoods about a stolen election.
The US will thus most likely be the world’s new epicentre of political and geopolitical instability in the months and years ahead. America’s allies will need to hedge their bets against a future return of Trumpism, and strategic rivals will continue to try to destabilize the US through asymmetric warfare. The world is in for a long, ugly, bumpy ride.
This article was written by Nouriel Roubini and has been republished from Project Syndicate 12 January 2021.
Project Syndicate produces and delivers original, high-quality commentaries to a global audience. Featuring exclusive contributions by prominent political leaders, policymakers, scholars, business leaders, and civic activists from around the world, we provide news media and their readers cutting-edge analysis and insight, regardless of ability to pay.
www.project-syndicate.org
Comments
17 responses to “America is the new centre of global instability”
It will be worse for the world if the US becomes united in hate rather than divided in it.
We have just witnessed the inauguration of Joe Biden, the 46th President of the United States. The reign of the 45th President is over and should be assigned to the dustbin of history. The future can only be brighter.
Not quite.
The 75 million who voted for Trump are still there; altogether there are probably 200 million whose well being has degraded substantially since the start of globalisation just a few decades ago. The Biden team are made up of people who are into militarism, imperialism and corporatism (to quote Glenn Greenwald).
Biden’s sponsors in the military-industrial complex need wars to sell their weapons, and keep their share prices up. Foreign wars and military interventions are always a great way to distract the domestic audience. And Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc. are all great pals of the Biden guys. So big tech manipulation of information will be a given.
The Deep State and the CIA will also be happy. In Biden they have somebody in lockstep with them, so no need to subvert the presidency like they did Trump.
Medicare for all? Fat chance! Bring jobs back to America? You’ve got to be kidding! More food stamps? Yes, Americans will definitely need that!
The scary thing for us in our region is whether the neo-cons will be tempted to take China down a few military pegs whilst they can. If that happens, you can bet your bottom dollar that the deputy Sheriff will be in.
Who exactly is “Deep State”? Sounds like one of those conspiracy theories as this term is never explained, let alone proven to exist anywhere.
The term has been constantly defined and explained in the past few years, and although it varies from country to country, it mostly refers to the permanent elements of governance, as exemplified in the intelligence and administrative arms of the state. In the UK, for example, it was the ‘villain’ in the popular TV series, Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister, where Humphrey was always trying to block and obstruct the aims of the elected government. This was a comic rendition of the problem, but in the US it is generally portrayed in more malign terms. That it exists is in no doubt.
So, as I then understand it, Deep State refers to the more permanent structures of an administration or a public service. Hardly the more evil connotation that usually is attached to the term.
Exactly, except the interference of those permanent structures, especially in the US, has become more noticed and commented on in the past four years or so, with Trump, a political outsider, been seen by some to have run foul of establishment institutions.
Yes, in the example of the USA, organisations such as the CIA/NSA/FBI, etc. which sometimes see themselves as the custodians of the Empire, over and above the President. And, with or without collaboration of serving members of the government, seek to undermine the policies of the administration.
With the Trump administration, the President completely failed to withdraw from Syria, and Afghanistan because the Pentagon at the behest of the security and intelligence operatives decided that they wouldn’t do it. Another example was when Trump tried to do the deal with Kim Jong-Un; by many accounts, it was John Bolton, war monger extraordinaire, with the help of the Defence establishment, who got it sabotaged.
During Trump’s time, the FBI also took it upon itself to create stories about Russian interference, and undermine the President. I say that because there are a lot of assertions but no smoking gun was found.
John Kennedy told the CIA in no uncertain terms that he was going to sort them out. There’s no proof that the CIA had him killed, but who ever got him killed, it was most definitely the ‘Deep State’. Did you mention ‘evil’? It’s up to you to interpret that.
Presidents come and go, the Empire remains, and as long as that is the case, there are most definitely senior operatives in America who see themselves as custodians of the Empire, and where there is a conflict, the President may actually come off worse.
And if you look at recent US administrations, including the Trump administration, there are always a few things that don’t change. Massive spending on the military, massive arms sales abroad, 1,000 military bases, ‘Pivot to Asia’ aka China-bashing, interference in dozens of countries, practically zero spending on Medicare for the poor folks, etc. etc.
Apart from Climate change policies, and perhaps a deal with Iran by Biden, the same powerful vested interests run America. And the Deep State is there to protect those same interests!
They do have a new problem that they hadn’t before. And that is 200 million newly poor, angry and disenfranchised folks who are not part of the 1% obscenely rich. These folks will be back in 2024 and bite America in the bum.
“During Trump’s time, the FBI also took it upon itself to create stories
about Russian interference, and undermine the President. I say that
because there are a lot of assertions but no smoking gun was found.”
That’s a heck of a leap, Man Lee. The investigation was obstructed at every turn, and evidence may have been destroyed. So the absence of evidence does not prove that the FBI invented the whole thing. I never picked you as a Trump clone, running exactly his argument.
But I am sure you would agree that, apart from Fox, the rest of the media were crucifying Trump 24/7 for at least 2 or 3 years. Trump was an outsider who did not comply to what is expected of a US President.
He wanted to be friendly with Russia- that was a no no for the custodians of the Empire. He told some very uncomfortable truth about America, etc. etc. Sure he gave huge tax cuts, and kept Wall Street happy.
When the 13 or 16 intelligence agencies reported on the ‘facts’ about Russian interference, they could only find a couple of thousands of dollars of Russian advertising on Facebook! The rest referred to broadcasts from RT, which was just reporting ordinary stories, albeit with a non-American bent to them.
The fact was the Empire’s, and Big Tech’s candidate (despite all the tricks that Google deployed), Clinton failed in the 2016 elections, and the Empire’s establishment was seriously unhappy, and as a result, they were out to get Trump.
Me a Trump clone? Not at all. The advantage that I think I have is that I am ideological free. I go by only the facts and the logic.
Trump is obviously a criminal many times over (even if his only crime was how he attacked so many women…).
But all that does not detract from the fact that many in the Establishment conspired to get him.
I think we’ll have to agree to read it differently. Yes, the mainstream media was critical, but in my view not nearly critical enough. Trump was so malevolent, venal and argumentative that he daily got away with things that no President ever had before. The media had neither the space nor the energy to run them all down. According to Washington Post fact checkers he lied more than 30,000 times in office, and vast numbers of those lies were not challenged.
As for being friends with Russia, I am among those who believe Putin has something on him. He constantly prostrated himself before Putin. He called NATO the enemy and Russia a friend, he refused to believe his own intelligence services rather than Putin, he ignored the alleged Russian bounty on American heads in Afghanistan, saying it was probably China instead.
Boasting of his squalid behaviour to women is certainly pretty bad. Monetising the presidency is pretty bad. Deliberately downplaying the pandemic and attempting to bully the scientists, so that within weeks half a million Americans will have died is a heck of a lot worse than pretty bad. Attempting to overturn an election because he didn’t want to go is, as Liz Cheney said, the greatest betrayal by any US President of his office and his oath. I’m afraid we have to disagree on whether you are going by the facts and the logic – or perhaps we agree on the facts but disagree on the immorality.
I did say that I agree that the Donald really was the baddest of them all.
However, I just want to take you up on one factual point. I think Trump was right in not believing what the Deep State was telling him about the alleged Russian bounty. There is no proof:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/u-s-commander-intel-still-hasn-t-established-russia-paid-n1240020
If NBC news can’t be sure, you know it is a lie. Presidents get lied to all the time.
I think you have to be more sceptical of what your Western media is telling you.
But I am not unsympathetic to the ‘consumers’ of the Western media like yourself. The propaganda machine coming out of the Deep State via the corporate media cranks up ‘news and stories’ 24/7.
You get lied to all the time! That is how the Empire holds together. If there is TRUTH in the media nearly all the time, the Empire that causes endless wars for ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ would be gone! And Americans and non-Americans in the world would have peace and great relations.
Just remember WMD. Circa 2003. You ARE being lied to!
Yes, on the general point we agree. Vested interests do lie to us, and the mainstream media is usually the main conveyor the lies, and sometimes deliberate perpetrator. But, by and large, they are still the most accurate and relied upon. The skill is telling where truth and error start to come together, and we all have our own view on that. WMD is a good example, and the mainstream media was the main vehicle for the dissemination of the big lie, but it was mostly genuine reporting of deceivers. Lots of newspapers, including my own tried to dig deeper. I think Bush himself believed the reports, but of course he wanted to.
One of the tricks is to read widely across the spectrum. As I’ve said before, I subscribe to the Age, Australian, Herald Sun, New York Times, Spectator and New Yorker. I get the daily emails from at least a dozen sources, not least Pearls&Irritations. This doesn’t guarantee me anything, but it shows I am trying.
I see! I am not even sure if the Spectator is even ‘left’ these days. The rest that you listed are run-of-the-mill mainstream. You could try some of the Alt Right media (I am left of the Greens, but it’s always good to know what the fascists are thinking!), or better still some of the progressive left: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_media_(U.S._political_left)
Some Christians in America are careful about not learning too much about Islam lest they too become Muslims! I promise you won’t be converted from your Christian faith!
Try reading some of the material at: https://www.counterpunch.org/ 🙂
Thanks for your suggestions, and I may well look. It’s just that I find the alt-right, and indeed the extreme left, something of a cesspit.
The Spectator has never been left, it is thoroughly right-wing, nuttily so in Australia sometimes. From there, from right to left, Australian, Herald-Sun, Age, New York Times, New Yorker, Guardian.
Conspiracy is necessary to get as much money as possible out of the taxpayers’ pockets and into those of the deep state. It happens in the board-rooms of corporations on lucrative government contracts, during informal contacts in the lobbies of parliaments, and in nearby, unnecessarily expensive restaurants which are also part of the deep state. It is always necessary to conceal the ultimate (pecuniary) purpose of the deep state’s projects from the taxpayer.
‘Deep State’ comes from old Turkish, Ottoman (I guess), ‘derin devlet’ and was previously resurrected then popularised by that other great ‘liberal democratic leader’ Recep Erdogan (think it had also been used to describe the post WWII NATO ‘Gladio’ strategy, partly embedded in defence/security services, that in southern/Balkan member states became corrupt, mafia like, staging terrorist provocations and used to fight the left or ‘communists’).
Erdogan like Trump, uses it to deflect from corruption, incompetence, autocracy, nepotism, cronyism, rentier policy favours etc. and cites it to suggest the he the ruler is at a supposedly unfair disadvantage (in their own paranoid minds); central PR tenet of conservatives everywhere is to play the martyr and/or victim?
Like they and their followers are prone to conspiracy theories, the latter are easier than clear research/investigation and analysis….. or heaven forbid, ‘journalism’ and/or ‘science’.
Also, quite handy to use if the ‘people’ don’t fall in line and follow orders on religious observance and blind nationalism…… confuse them and flood them with ‘noise’.
Australia is now attracting comparisons on media fairness with Turkey and Russia; well done…..