Tribune. On January 6, 2021, a crowd of Americans, encouraged by President Trump, stormed Congress, the heart of American democracy, unleashing several hours of violence, followed live by paralyzed Americans and the world. The assault, prepared by several organized groups, and supported by a faction of the Republican Party, intended to prevent the certification of the election of Democratic President Joe Biden, already validated by each state, in accordance with the American Constitution.
This article is taken from “World Report” 2022. The new edition is on sale in newsstands from Monday January 24 or online by visiting the Boutique.lemonde.fr website.
On August 15, 2021, after a campaign lasting a few weeks, the culmination of a reconquest begun for more than a year, the Taliban reinstalled themselves in power in Kabul, accelerating the retreat of American and allied troops, triggering evacuations in panic and violence.
Twenty years after 9/11 and the surge of American military violence on the world in response to the attacks, the Kabul airport debacle seemed to sum up the succession of strategic errors and inability to understand a reality resistant to ideological certainties. and other democracy promotion theories.
The “winner” of September 11 is China
Between these two events, a common thread, which concerns American foreign policy, from hubris to withdrawal in the face of the awareness of China’s rise, but also American society, in a country deeply transformed by the consequences of the attacks. of 2001. For American foreign policy, the fall of Kabul recalls other tragic errors, clandestine prisons (“black sites”) CIA to the Iraqi invasion of 2003, from the generalization of torture to the revelations of the prison of Abu Ghraib.
The withdrawal from Afghanistan must finally allow the realization of the “pivot” towards Asia, announced by Barack Obama, clarified by Donald Trump, endorsed by Biden
The paradox of George W. Bush’s neoconservative advisers is that their vision to capitalize on the unipolar American hyperpower moment hastened its end. Two decades later, the results are colossal and disastrous – but not for everyone: as the journalist Pierre Haski said in his anniversary column, the “winner” of 9/11 is China.
For the United States today, the withdrawal from Afghanistan must finally allow the realization of the “pivot” towards Asia, announced by Barack Obama, clarified by Donald Trump, endorsed by Biden. Unlike the Europeans, the Asian allies did not see the fall of Kabul as an attack on American credibility – rather the condition of its strengthening against China.
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