Brutal
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AKK proposes “security zone” in Syria
Germany’s defense minister is Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (AKK).
She is also the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which means she would normally be expected to succeed Angela Merkel as the CDU’s next candidate for chancellor.
But a large portion of the party is unhappy with her — or I should say the portion that is unhappy is loud enough that one is easily convinced it is also large. How large I have no idea, but most of them, I think, want Friedrich Merz to take over.
(I exposed my own dim view of Merz in The Nation last year, after he was narrowly defeated in the race for party leadership by AKK. My favorite Merz anecdote, so far, is about the time he thanked a homeless man who found his laptop at a train station by sending a free copy of his book on trickle-down economics to the man’s shelter.)
For days, the German press has been full of speculation and discussion about AKK’s prospects. And it’s all been the kind of speculation and discussion of which most political party leaders try not to become the subject.
Into the context of AKK’s doubtful political future came Donald Trump’s boneheaded decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria without telling anyone, except, I suppose, Erdogan, so that the latter could invade the country, joining all the other foreign forces already enjoying themselves there.
AKK, having attended, apparently, Trump University’s school of diplomatic technique, decided to launch Germany into the Middle East’s garden of pleasure with an initiative she announced on television last night that she never worked out with the foreign minister, whom she only bothered to inform by text message just before her TV appearance.
The initiative is for Germany to create with Turkey and Russia a “security zone” in northern Syria.
But wait, you say. Wasn’t the whole point of Turkey’s invasion the creation of just such a zone? Doesn’t this mean that AKK is just offering German troops to help guard what Turkey has taken?
If you said that, I’m pretty sure you would be right. But the subtleties of high-level diplomacy, especially when conducted by the former minister-president of the Saarland, Germany’s smallest state, can be so hard to keep track of.
And this time you have to be particularly clever because the foreign minister, Heiko Maas, has said that Turkey’s invasion was a violation of international law.
So why should Germany do something that appears to be assisting in the violation, even after the fact?
I admit I do not know.
Now, when I look at this entire debacle — Turkey’s actions, the U.S. withdrawal, the German defense minister’s initiative — I feel like I’m watching a group of amateurs who, at some point soon I’m sure, will take a bow and let the actual world leaders back onto the stage. Where are such leaders now? By which I mean simply anyone with some skill. I almost don’t care about the content at this point.
There is a building on the East River in New York City that we in fact are all pledged to repair to when untoward things, like Turkey’s invasion of Syria, occur.
It seems quaint to mention, doesn’t it?
But I remember the days when the Americans, before committing their various invasions and violations, would have to spend some energy “sidelining” the UN. It was like a step in the process before you could do your invasion.
But now no one even bothers to sideline the UN. It’s not part of this or any process at all.
Of course, Germany (and France) have an interest in the Turkish project.
Remember, one of Erdogan’s supposed goals is to move millions of refugees from where they languish in Turkey to the “security zone.”
Since none of our leaders has any more intention of actually helping these millions of people than they have of solving international problems at the UN, why not just create a big refugee city out in the desert, guarded by Russia, Turkey, and Germany?
To be a politician you don’t need to be a visionary, and in fact it’s better not to be. You need ideas that match the spirit of your times. By that measure, maybe AKK’s political fortunes will improve. After all, her initiative, in all its brutal, small-minded cynicism, matches the spirit of our times perfectly.
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