Germany’s first Kanzler from the former East Germany might be expected to have a slightly more realistic view of realpolitik than the former (West) German socialist leader Schroder did. Judging by her recent remarks, this is one expectation that fortunately seems to have been met.
Germany is back. After eight years in which Berlin’s foreign policy consisted largely of niggling the United States, cozying up to Russia and off-shoring its European policy to Paris, newly-elected Chancellor Angela Merkel has signaled a 180-degree about-turn. In a hard-hitting and unusually blunt speech Saturday to the Munich Conference on Security Policy, the center-right leader sketched out an ambitious foreign and defense policy for Germany over the next four years.
“A united Germany is ready to shoulder more responsibility above and beyond the alliance area to secure stability in the world,” Merkel told relieved delegates, who have become accustomed to German statesmen querying U.S. policies or engaging in torturous debates about sending soldiers abroad.
It’s even better than that sounds:
The recently elected chancellor, who enjoys 80 percent approval ratings, reserved her harshest words for the radical Islamist regime in Iran. Adopting a muscular tone rarely used by German leaders, Merkel likened recent remarks of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in which he denied the Holocaust and called for Israel to be wiped off the map, to the rise of the Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. Stating that Germany had learned from its history, she said Berlin would not tolerate a nuclear Iran.
Merkel’s black and white view of politics is more reminiscent of her self-confessed hero Ronald Reagan than any of her recent predecessors.
THAT explains a LOT of this! The Chief’s heart is always warmed to see that the spirit of Ronaldus Magnus lives on!
She warned the extremist group Hamas, which won last week’s Palestinian Authority elections, to renounce violence and recognize Israel or face ostracism and even waded into the debate about Danish newspaper cartoons of Mohammed, saying Berlin stood by Copenhagen.
JAWOHL!