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COMMENTARY
September 25, 2002
Counting Germany out
Having neither a psychopathic dictator nor weapons of mass destruction Germany is not a candidate for membership in the axis of evil. But there are lists and lists and after the narrow victory of Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats in Sunday's elections the Germans are generally out of favour in Washington. As the world is now aware Mr. Schroeder's re-election depended on a campaign of America-bashing the like of which had not been seen among Western Europe's more mature political parties. But as I shall explain in a moment what looks on the surface like a passing tempest will have longer term ramifications. While Chancellor Schroeder was edged out in the vote by Edmund Stoiber's Christian Democrats he is able to form a new government in coalition with the Greens who did well by playing on fears of environmental catastrophe; whereas the CDU's potential coalition partner the free-market Free Democrats lost ground. The SPD's razor-edge of nine seats in the Bundestag or lower house confronts an opposition majority in the Bundesrat or upper house whose members are chosen by the states (or lander ) where the SPD continues to lose electoral ground. The ability of the Bundesrat to block important legislation from the Bundestag promises a Germany as hog-tied politically as it is stagnant economically: the formula for another Japan-style long-term retrenchment. President George W. Bush pointedly failed to make the customary congratulatory call to the re-elected Chancellor. In Poland to attend a NATO meeting Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declined an opportunity to chat with his German colleague and used the word "poisoning" to describe the way the Chancellor's recklessly anti-American re-election campaign had effected relations between the two countries. Condoleezza Rice had used the same term in an interview from within the White House; no one else has anything to say. In Germany itself the old post-war guard the elder statesmen from all parties have been lamenting the overnight destruction of Germany's hard-won reputation for reliability -- the product of 57 years' work. Germany's partners within the European Union have without exception made distance from the Schroeder government. There is public schadenfreude (taking pleasure in their pain) over Germany's discomfiture; for no matter how unpopular the Yankees may make themselves in the new Europe the Germans can outdo them with very little effort. Why Mr. Schroeder would have done as he did is clear enough. At the time he announced implacable opposition to any U.S. attack on Iraq -- whether or not sanctioned by the United Nations -- he was trailing by more than 10 points in the polls. He had made a complete hash of his first term the German economy had flatlined with four million unemployed he was surrounded by ministers making embarrassing remarks and the opposition was sailing home to victory. It was a desperate bid to change the subject and it worked. The odd thing is the most recent poll showed a slight majority (53 per cent) of Germans actually favouring an attack on Iraq if it is not unilateral (which it will not be); many of these must be Social Democrats. But the trick in this sort of demagogic politics is to find the "hot button" that will swing a crucial 5 to 10 per cent -- and playing cravenly to the pacifist anti-American gallery did the trick; together with promising to distribute over $10 billion to reimburse every pfennig of uninsured flood damage from the August deluge in eastern Germany. Several incidents towards the end of the vicious campaign served to exhaust any patience the Bush administration still had together with any residual excuses for the Germans from neighbouring European governments. Mr. Schroeder's outgoing justice minister Herta D?ubler-Gmelin made a comparison of Mr. Bush's tactics with Hitler's (which she later denied although the remark was documented by a journalist). The former German defence minister Rudolf Scharping -- one of several Schroeder ministers to leave office in disgrace -- told a group of what he thought were sympathetically liberal U.S. journalists behind closed doors in Hamburg that the German government believes President Bush is trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein to please "a powerful perhaps overly powerful Jewish lobby". Compounding this Juergen Moellemann the deputy leader of the Free Democrats (the opposition party's coalition partner) made what were interpreted by his colleagues as anti-Semitic remarks to Muslim and other groups in an attempt to recapture some of the vote that was escaping to the Social Democrats and Greens. (He agreed to resign on Monday.) Now paradoxically while members of the Bush administration are publicly angry with and hostile to the Schroeder government and intend to remain so for a long time they are secretly pleased with Schroeder's victory. The huge U.S. military presence in Germany has long been a drain on U.S. resources though an important local provider to the German economy. While a useful forward staging area for operations in the Middle East and western Asia it was nevertheless designed as a deterrent against Soviet aggression during the Cold War. It has remained to the present day as a concession to German and European special pleading: for it represents a subsidy to replace European defence spending. Suddenly and conveniently at a time when U.S. resources are much needed elsewhere the Schroeder government has provided the Americans with an excuse to pack up and leave. The Germans may be as surprised as the Saudi Arabians were to discover how mobile the U.S. forces have become. For within several months of the Saudi government's suggestion that the U.S. might not be allowed to use its air and command facility at Prince Sultan air base the Americans had without any publicity pulled up pegs and moved most of its operations to Qatar. I am reliably informed that important German-based U.S. command functions and even standby bombers had already been transferred to England and elsewhere during the German election to reduce exposure to any Schroeder political stunt. With the election now decided the U.S. has a further interest in making the Germans pay a heavy price for Mr. Schroeder's anti-American posturing; for in the present state of the world the U.S. can no longer afford to indulge unreliable allies. (Canadians should watch what happens carefully.) I would expect to see further transfers of U.S. facilities to the territory of such new NATO members as Poland and the Czech Republic where they will be gratefully received. The U.S. will seize the opportunity to disengage from Cold War obligations in Europe and re-engage along post-9/11 lines. This re-engagement is proceeding well. By making itself odd-man-out of the European consensus the Germans have also enabled the Bush administration to "divide and conquer" the continent's political matrix. The French Italians and others have been almost gloating about their own improved relations with the U.S. Indeed the one thing Gerhard Schroeder didn't calculate in winning his election the way he did is that he would be advancing U.S. interests; while setting himself up for a second term in office that will be even more painful than his first. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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