Posted on 02/22/2003 12:34:33 PM PST by tictoc
Angela Merkel Doesn't Understand the Turnabout in U.S. Foreign PolicyAdmittedly, it is a large backside that the sole remaining superpower's government is currently showing the rest of the world as it continues planning for an invasion of Iraq. But still, no one is being forced at gunpoint to crawl as far up that backside as Angela Merkel has done. And there certainly is no need to cram the toilet paper up ahead of yourself, in the form of an op-ed in the Washington Post. But, Merkel is doing so anyway.
So far, so bad. You might simply call the conduct of Germany's opposition leader disgusting, and perhaps also a little embarrassing. One could be hopeful that the chairwoman of the CDU, as clueless as she is in matters of foreign policy, would get her deserved comeuppance for stepping forward abroad with positions rejected by more than three out of four Germans -- and, worse even, to do so under the headline "Schröeder Doesn't Speak for all Germans".
However, both Merkel's screed, and the intention of her visit, point towards a problem that will indeed have a long-term impact on the outlines of German and European foreign policy. To an even greater extent than Germany's Social Democrats, the foreign policy experts of the CDU are refusing to acknowledge the new strategic thinking of U.S. foreign policy and the unilateral alteration by Washington of its relationships with alliance partners.
Mr. Pflüger (foreign-policy spokesman for the CDU -- tictoc), Schäuble (deputy head of the CDU in the German Bundestag -- tictoc), and, yes, Merkel instead are holding fast to an image of the United States that was wrong even back in the days of the Cold War. But at the time, that image at least coincided with the objective interests of the Federal Republic. West German democracy had been created with U.S. assistance, West Berlin was defended with U.S. assistance, and thus, in a bipolar world, membership in an alliance was enough to answer the essential questions of West German foreign policy. However, today the CDU politicians still act as if a pledge of fealty to Washington was sufficient as a guideline, making any perception of reality improper. At best, this is just a tactically motivated dog-vs.-dog "snapping reflex" against the government. We fear, however, that they actually mean what they say.
This puts the leadership of the CDU at a conceptual disadvantage, and makes them as isolated within their own country as Europe's right-wing governments are from their populations, and the U.S. government from the rest of the world. It comes as a relief, however, that Merkel's backwoods style of wanting to undercut her own government's position through brown-nosing editorials published abroad is seen worldwide as evidence of poor breeding. The difference in class to the French foreign minister (also a political conservative), who received standing ovations in the UN security council for his appeal in favor of peace, is clear for all to see.
Merkel's op-ed has succeeded nevertheless in opening all doors for her in Washington. Rubbing their hands with glee at the sight of such heart-warming naïveté, the far-right clique of ideologues in Washington is going to receive her like a head of state.
German ping
longjack
Is Merkel that much of a threat ? This is some really disgusting stuff.
longjack
It's just dandy with me if we receive her *as* a head of state.
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