Gorbachev says future of US as one state in doubt

Mikhail Gorbachev, who was the last leader of the former Soviet Union, says the future of the United States as one coherent state is in doubt following the tremendous upheaval and political violence spearheaded by outgoing President Donald Trump that climaxed in the storming of the US Capitol building by a mob on Wednesday.

Gorbachev, under whose watch the former Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, told Interfax on Friday that the assault by the pro-Trump mob on the symbolic heart of US democracy on Wednesday was an ominous sign foreshadowing potential disintegration along political lines.

The mob assault, Gorbachev said, “called into question the future fate of the United States as a state.”

He tacitly likened the storming of the Capitol building to a coup d’état.

“The assault on the Capitol was evidently planned in advance, and it is clear by whom,” Gorbachev said, in an apparent reference to Trump himself. “It will take some time, but we will understand why this was really done.”

Trump on Wednesday incited a mob of his supporters to storm the US Capitol building as lawmakers were in the process of confirming the electoral victory of Joe Biden. Trump has refused to concede his defeat even as Biden has garnered a wide margin of Electoral College and popular votes against him in the November 2020 election. The defeated US president has been making baseless accusations that the election was rigged.

During the Wednesday mayhem, armed Trump supporters breached the Capitol as lawmakers took shelter in their offices. While security staff was initially overwhelmed, police were later deployed and ended the chaos. At least five people were killed during the mob assault.

Trump’s incitement of the mob to storm the US legislature prompted calls for his removal by top US lawmakers. His own cabinet reportedly even met to discuss his removal from office.

US cabinet discusses Trump's removal over riot as four killed on Capitol grounds

Donald Trump

Many past and present US officials, as well as countries around the world — including Washington’s own allies — chastised Trump for the inciting of the violence and condemned the mob assault.

Gorbachev also expressed hope about the future of the relations between Russia and the United States.

“People who do not want war will unite, and their leaders will have to find a way out,” he said. “They will find new forms of treaties which take into account new types of weapons. We must not lose hope. I don’t lose hope in young people.”

In 1987, Gorbachev and the then-US President Ronald Reagan signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), a landmark of diplomacy at the height of the Cold War. Trump has unilaterally withdrawn America from that treaty, raising concerns about a renewed arms race between the world powers.

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