“Only the Germans have been dragging their feet, mainly because of the SPD’s close ties to Putin.”
The Germans have been dragging their feet because they know there is no popular support among their people to directly involve themselves into this. Recently there have been mass demonstrations in Germany and elsewhere in the EU to do away with the Russian sanctions because the cost of energy there has gone thru the roof. The Neocons noted this and thus took out the pipelines as they saw Germany and the EU going soft, so they basically took that option away.
Sourcing their gas from the US and elsewhere means it’s costing them 2-3 times as much as they were paying Russia, rendering their economy uncompetitive. The only country benefitting from this Ukraine proxy war is the US, the EU is screwed.
The German government was not going soft on sanctions. The only party making noises was Die Linke, where Sahra Wagenknecht was talking about dropping sanctions along with an eastern German state politician. Their comments where widely condemned by other German politicians and the media.
The notion that the US blew up the pipelines is laughable, as this administration wears diapers because it pisses itself with fear every day. The "Biden" admin is clueless not ruthless.