2009 election: a Germany that can balance US w/ Russia ? haha

Imagining a Germany in the middle of the road

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/15/europe/politicus.php

By John Vinocur
Monday, September 15, 2008

BERLIN: Could you get elected German chancellor Sept. 27 next year if your opponents say your goals are "emancipating" Germany and Europe from the United States, and setting a policy course for a Europe "equidistant" between Russia and the Americans?

Could be.

The prospect is sufficiently real that Christian Democrats leaders are thinking over just how black (or red) they want to paint Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Social Democratic foreign minister in the coalition government of Angela Merkel, who will run against the Christian Democratic chancellor in 2009.

A Germany described as ready to steer a middle-of-the-road route between Moscow and Washington would terrify much of Europe. If it became a fact, it would almost surely lead to a split in the European Union more profound than its pro- and anti-American divisions over Iraq in 2003.

So calling attention to the risk, and finding the right volume for it, requires fine measurements by Germany's Atlanticists. Because, in the words of three first-team conservative players here, big segments of German business and the population at large are perfectly comfortable with appeasing the Russians.

Some details and the dilemma:

Steinmeier became the Social Democrats' announced candidate after participating in an intraparty putsch 10 days ago. He owes his foreign minister's job, and perhaps the inspiration for the takeover, to Gerhard Schröder, the former chancellor who, from the soft cushions of Vladimir Putin's Gazprom payroll, currently shills for Russia in Germany.

Steinmeier worked directly under Schröder as his chief of staff in Berlin. His allegiance to Schröder was and perhaps is still such that the mainstream press reflexively described him as Schröder's factotum.

These recent weeks, the old boss has been blatant in his support of Russia's invasion of Georgia. Schröder sees the European Union as having an East-West "go-between" role in the crisis.

His vocabulary is without euphemism: after covering a Schröder talk about the Georgia crisis at a private gathering in Berlin the week before last, a reporter for the left-of-center Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote, "It was as if the Russian ambassador were speaking."

Steinmeier is bookkeeperish, even counter-charismatic, in style, but popular. One guess about why goes to his projection of Germany's role in the world as a constant intermediary - hoping to avoid taking sides, or life or death responsibilities, and, if possible, bypassing global engagement that could trouble anyone's vacation plans.

The Christian Democrats' current wariness is a lot about taking a whack at this now institutionalized German comfort zone where Steinmeier (not to mention innumerable German voters) is so at ease.

As a result, the CDU proxy target is mostly Schröder, the nakedly Russian lobbyist, whom the Social Democrats are trying to re-legitimize as a campaign force.

"The fact is, Steinmeier has failed to emancipate himself from Schröder," said Karl Theodor von Guttenberg, a Christian Democrat foreign policy voice.

"And the thing about Schröder," von Guttenberg insisted, "is nobody can miss that the raven sitting on his shoulder speaks with a Russian accent."

He made this hard point: When Peter Struck, chief of the Social Democratic grouping the Bundestag, called last year for Germany to adopt a policy of "equal proximity" between the United States and Russia, Steinmeier "tried to find analogous terms that would say the same thing while skirting the equidistance buzz-word."

Ironically, Steinmeier may have thought Schröder could be a hindrance last year. An article in the newsmagazine Der Spiegel, seemingly written with his guidance, announced, "Steinmeier has emancipated himself from the Russia policy of his mentor Gerhard Schröder."

But it also explained this only meant avoiding Schröder's refusal to speak on the abuse of human rights in Putin's Russia. Rather, it said Steinmeier wanted to "more deeply embed the EU in relations with Russia" in order to strengthen its competitive position "against the United States, China and India."

Now, Steinmeier spends his time calling for an investigation of the causes of the fighting in Georgia, a gift to Russia, opponents say, of a propaganda showcase.

In step with Steinmeier's grab of the chancellor candidacy, the Social Democrats are trying to reinsert Schröder as a detoxified element in the German debate through an invitation to speak at a government-sponsored forum on the future of the country's energy needs. Saying Schröder has no place there, the Christian Democrats have demanded the invitation it be rescinded.

All of this comes in the midst of deep German contradictions.

The Social Democrats, about 10 point behind the Christian Democrats in the polls, clearly want to re-establish themselves as the "party of peace" that would bravely stand up for a "special German path" and replicate Schröder's victory, with George W. Bush as a foil, in 2002.

But German intelligence agency papers leaked last week confirmed that Steinmeier, acting for Schröder, specifically authorized German undercover agents in Baghdad to provide detailed targeting information to American forces preparing to invade.

The reports point to a devastating contradiction: the two men were playing both sides of the fence - while passing themselves off as antiwar idealists and emancipators of Europe from America's grip.

Another jarring bit of reality: Angela Merkel, who denounced a planned Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline in 2005 as tightening Moscow's control over Europe's energy supply, now embraces it and dodges putting a common European energy policy at the top of the EU's list in responding to Russia's invasion and annexations in Georgia.

Still, it's safe to argue that a glowering recession and arguments about reform policy may well be the dominant issues in choosing a chancellor next year.

When it comes to an aggressive Russian in 2009, a hard judge of German politics could conclude this country's election alternatives will be appeasement or (good) business as usual.

Copyright © 2008 The International Herald Tribune

this is how it begins, eh? still, it wouldn't feel like a real world war if we weren't fighting the Germans.