A Tale Of Two US Departures – OpEd

By Faisal J. Abbas

It is a major event in the US when not one, but two, senior office holders step down from their positions. This week, Joe Biden withdrew his candidacy to be the Democratic nominee in November’s presidential election, and Kimberly Cheatle resigned as director of the US Secret Service after the attempted assassination of the Republican candidate, Donald Trump.

Two high-profile departures, then — but a world of difference between them.

Biden’s decision was widely applauded within his own party, being viewed as putting his country first by passing on the torch to another candidate better placed to serve the American people.

Cheatle, by contrast, resigned only after a merciless grilling from both sides of the political aisle at the House Oversight Committee — in a hearing that she attended only after being served with a legal subpoena.

Cheatle eventually admitted that the Secret Service’s dealing with the assassination attempt on Trump was a “colossal failure.” Of course, no one expected a traditional Samurai-style act of hara-kiri out of remorse or regret: Cheatle has indeed fallen on her sword, but only metaphorically, and some may say that her resignation suffices. However, like many others, I found her attitude during the hearing arrogant, dismissive and quite frankly rather unapologetic.

As a result, many questions remain unanswered: for instance, why were the Secret Service officers so slow to react when that first shot rang out? Trump lives and breathes today because he literally dodged a bullet, not because his security detail protected him (if anything, one of the officers squeezed him so hard there were genuine fears that she might have been the cause of his premature death). Moreover, why was the area not subject to a more careful and thorough security sweep? And why did Secret Service officers ignore warnings, both from colleagues and from members of the public, that a young man with a backback and a long-range sight was acting suspiciously and had climbed on to the roof from where he subsequently opened fire?

You may ask why I, the editor of Arab News, bring this up when it’s clearly an internal US issue.

But as this column has noted before, what happens in America doesn’t stay in America and if the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.

Biden’s withdrawal as a candidate has reflected positively on the US image abroad by showing statesmanship, and a peaceful and civilized transition of power. But the debacle of the Trump assassination attempt has caused observers worldwide to doubt the competence and abilities of such an important institution as the US Secret Service. There is a huge gap between the image created by Hollywood films — “Olympus Has Fallen” springs to mind, with its Secret Service hero — and the almost comical ineptitude on display in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.

At a time when critics take pleasure in mocking a diminished US global role and doubt American abilities, such incompetence by what is otherwise a highly regarded institution such as the Secret Service will inevitably leave many skeptical — especially against a backdrop of significant successes by traditional US competitors such as China, whether military, commercial, technological or diplomatic. Beijing not only brokered a Saudi-Iranian rapprochement last year, but also has just done the same for the two main Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah.

Personally, I think no rational or wise observer should ever bet against America, a powerful country that is also full of great talent, ideas and, most important, resilience. But when such a great nation cannot protect its own former president, and a contender to be the next one too, then it is only fair to say that this is indeed a “colossal failure.”

• Faisal J. Abbas is the editor-in-chief of Arab News. X: @FaisalJAbbas