Retired Army General Stanley McChrystal compared the violent pro-Trump rioters to Al-Qaeda*, suggesting that both movements had a "powerful leader" who "justified their violence'", and warned that radicalism in the US could result in an insurgency .
McChrystal, who formerly commanded US troops in Afghanistan, suggested specific parallels between the rise of the Islamist terrorist group and those who stormed the US Capitol last week, a violent attack that killed five.
Speaking to Yahoo News on Saturday, McChrystal noted that Trump has "legitimised" the increasing radicalism of his base with his so-called Stop the Steal slogan.
The top military chief warned that "the fabric of something very dangerous has been woven" and the US will feel the repercussions long after Trump leaves office. McChrystal added that the recent domestic attack reminded him of an emerging terrorist organisation.
"I did see a similar dynamic in the evolution of al-Qaida in Iraq, where a whole generation of angry Arab youth with very poor prospects followed a powerful leader who promised to take them back in time to a better place, and he led them to embrace an ideology that justified their violence", McChrystal told Yahoo News. "This is now happening in America".
The four-star general, largely credited with overseeing the airstrike that killed Iraqi Al Qaeda leader Musab al-Zarqawi, compared claims that the November 2020 election was stolen to the myth of 'Lost Cause' adopted by followers of the Confederate Army after their defeat in the American Civil War.
"President Trump has updated Lost Cause with his 'Stop the Steal' narrative that they lost because of a stolen election, and that is the only thing holding these people down and stopping them from assuming their rightful place in society", McChrystal observed. "That gives them legitimacy to become even more radical".
The retired general cautioned that the US is "much further along in this radicalization process, and facing a much deeper problem as a country, than most Americans realize", adding that extremist sentiment will "not simply disappear when Trump does".
McChrystal stated that, as they become increasingly subject to state arrest and repression, extremists tend to go quiet and become "more professional".
"As this extremist movement comes under increasing pressure from law enforcement in the coming days and weeks, its members will likely retreat into tighter and tighter cells for security, and that will make them more professional, and those cells will become echo chambers that incubate even more radical thinking along the lines of armed insurrection", he warned.
McChrystal's observations and warnings come after the deadly 6 January attack in which a group of pro-Trump protestors stormed the US Capital Building, resulting in five deaths, in a failed attempt to stop the Electoral College from formally declaring Joe Biden the winner of the November election.
This is not McChrystal's first criticism of Trump and his actions, previously noting he would refuse to serve in the Trump White House, if offered, describing the outgoing president as "immoral".
McChrystal stood down from his position in 2010, after a Rolling Stone article revealed that the general had openly mocked members of the Obama White House staff, including then-Vice President Joe Biden.
Following the incident, McChrystal endorsed Biden in his 2020 presidential bid.
*al-Qaeda - a terrorist group banned in Russia and many other countries