This month’s mob assault on the Capitol in Washington DC has injected new vigor in the “end of America” crowd across the globe. In China and Russia, the talk is centered on the claim that American democracy is no longer a model for nations seeking a global profile. For Khomeinists in the Islamic Republic in Iran and Chavista in Venezuela, the event marked “the beginning of the end” for the “Great Satan”. Some chattering circles in Europe relaunched speculation about the end of America as leader in the international arena.
In the US itself, too, some commentators presented the incident as an historic turning point. Richard Haas of the Council on Foreign Relations, hailed by the Tehran daily Kayhan as “America’s greatest strategist”, saw the riot as the starting point of the “post-America” world order.
