TEHRAN- The former chief of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard N. Haass, was inundated by negative thoughts emanating from certain countries like Russia and Iran but this time obsessed with a more serious cause that costs him sleep: the United States itself.

As Haass has reached a startling realization as he stepped down from his position as the most illustrious private foreign affairs organization in America, he wondered what present threat is the greatest to global security. The danger that keeps him up at night is the U.S. itself as he murmured sadly, “It’s us.”

Before recently, this global strategist would never have given that concept a second consideration. But in his eyes, the collapse of the American political system signifies that the internal threat has now exceeded the exterior menace for the first time in his life. 

In all, the United States has turned into its greatest cause of instability.

“Our domestic political situation is not only one that others don’t want to emulate,” he said in an interview ahead of his last day at the Council on Foreign Relations on Friday. “But I also think that it’s introduced a degree of unpredictability and a lack of reliability that’s really poisonous. For America’s ability to function successfully in the world, I mean, it makes it very hard for our friends to depend on us.”

A man who has spent his whole career as a policymaker and a student of world affairs has turned his focus inward due to difficulties at home.

America went through various eras of division and strife during the previous century, including Jim Crow, McCarthyism, Vietnam, civil rights, and Watergate. 

The assassinations, riots, and war of 1968 are frequently remembered as a particularly dismal year in the country’s history. 

But Haass considers this situation to be considerably worse. These, he argued, “were not threats to the system, the fabric. For that reason, in my opinion, this is more important.”