Shutdown, Syria: The True Unraveling of the United States

“It’s very hard from a distance to figure out who has lost their minds. One party, the other party, all of us, the president.”

This wasn’t an American comedian asking that question a couple days ago, but Claire McCaskil, a respected Democratic senator. That a federally elected American asks without the least bit of irony the questions that the entire world asks itself about the mental sanity of American leaders, the president included, shows the extent of an unleashed malfunction.

The chaos that persists from the “shutdown,” this partial closure of federal services, is the possible symptom of the degradation of the credibility of the United States. The rating agency Standard & Poors had downgraded their rating two years ago: it wasn’t wrong, since they wonder today if a group of twenty wacko Republicans in Congress will end up pushing the country into default, unleashing a crisis in the United States and in the entire world, to the side of the financial crisis, already caused by the United States, will pass for an anecdote.

We have a habit of pointing out the United States’ loss of its superpower status. The “shutdown” and the upcoming risk of default if the Congress doesn’t vote for a raising of the debt ceiling, puts into light the erosion of the predictability of the movements of the “American liner.” In two years, Washington offers us the third explosive budgetary crisis, exceeding the previous ones in eccentricity.

This degradation is not only at work in the economy. In international strategic matters, the American word no longer has the same popularity as before. Examples? After having demanded the freezing of the constructions of illegal territories in occupied territories in 2010, Obama pitifully capitulated to Israeli prime minister Netanyahu, who brushed off the hard words from the occupant of the White House. And what to say about Syria: Barack Obama barely announced this summer the imminent punitive intervention strike against Bashar al-Assad that he decided to put to Congress, before withdrawing it when Russia proposed dismantling Syria’s chemical arsenal.

On the geostrategic plan — economic or military — the real power of the United States is far from atrophied. American GDP covers 21.7 percent of world GDP (China follows at 11.4 percent) and 24.8 percent of world public debt. Their military budget, over $689 billion, is five times greater than China’s.

We shouldn’t dwell on the mental health of those who are at the help of a similar power. The weight of America in the world plays a similar role in that of a keel under a boat. But now, the gap between the unbalanced weight of this country and the unpredictability of its leaders creates a new type of danger. That’s the most chilling lesson of the “shutdown.”