The controversy surrounding the American elections seems far from over. Although the international media announced Joe Biden’s victory, electoral tensions are only increasing day after day, considering that both candidates are unwilling to acknowledge the legitimacy of an adverse outcome. Trump accuses Biden of defrauding the election results and calls for a new count. In this sense, Trump has judicialized the elections and hopes to remain in the presidency by the Court’s decision, which makes the scenario open to several possibilities, without a “clear victory” for Biden, as many media agencies have reported worldwide.
While this scenario persists, the decision to recognize Biden or not as the current American president remains optional for each country. Several countries in Europe and the Middle East have already recognized Biden, including France, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. On Tuesday, Turkey, a nation that had real and important closeness to the Trump administration, also recognized Biden. However, nations like Russia, China and Mexico remain awaiting a court decision.
As tensions rise inside and outside the country, both candidates continue to articulate strategies to ensure their victory. And such strategies go far beyond mere litigation. Across the country, both parties are calling for protests and a large investment is being made in diplomacy, with the aim of attracting foreign support. Mike Pompeo, American Secretary of State, is scheduled to travel to all countries that have already recognized Biden. The objective is simple: to negotiate possible agreements with such countries in order to reverse this scenario, presenting the “advantages” in supporting Donald Trump.
Mike Pompeo is a central figure in this scenario and cannot be ignored in any way. In a recent speech at a TV conference, the secretary stated that “there will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration (…)”.
It is at least interesting and curious how Pompeo guarantees that there will be such a transition. Pompeo did not give details about how this transition would be, but his professional history shows us how it can be, considering that, having served as director of the CIA and Secretary of State for the greatest world power, Pompeo has extensive experience in advanced intelligence operations, having been the pivot of several events on the international scenario in recent years. Certainly, most of his actions in such operations will never be made public, making it difficult to predict what will happen, but we know that sabotage, coups, color revolutions and other tactics have been common among American intelligence operations abroad – then, would this be the case for us to think about such actions being operated within the American territory itself and against an “internal enemy”?
However, it is important to note that, even during the election campaign, Biden and Trump had already declared that they would not recognize each other. Both candidates are willing to take the dispute to its final consequences, and there may be an exponential increase in the rates of violence and instability across the country. This, coupled with a scenario of inflamed racial tensions with armed ethnic militias fighting across the streets and a pandemic that has already killed more than 240,000 Americans, can only lead to complete social chaos, with total annihilation of the political, economic and legal order of the US.
Pompeo can, in fact, gain important allies on his travels. His focus should be on the Middle East, considering that despite the Arabs’ haste to congratulate Biden, the Democrat has a very aggressive rhetoric with that region, promising to exclude Saudi Arabia from international relations due to human rights violations, in addition to planning send more American troops to Syria. But what most worries the strategists of the Trump administration is the position of the State of Israel, which was one of the first American allies to recognize Biden. Certainly, Pompeo will try in all the possible ways to guarantee Israeli support for Trump if the dispute worsens in America – it remains to be seen, however, which side Netanyahu will prefer.
Thus, in a scenario with two stubborn candidates, unwilling to accept any result other than victory, calling for protests and accumulating international allies, we have the situation of a country with two self-proclaimed presidents, acting simultaneously and in total opposition to each other. In a scenario like this, chaos would be installed in the country, worsening racial tensions, regional separatisms, and popular rebellions, with government institutions unable to act effectively due to the uncertainty about who actually governs the country. This would represent the end not only of American liberal hegemony, but of American democracy itself.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
Featured image is from InfoBrics
