Germania, MO,Verdi, politica estera, forze armate
Wsws 06-02-16
Germany: Former Green Party leader
advocates European military role in the Middle East
By Peter
Schwarz
Following the change of government in Berlin little was heard
from the former Green Party foreign
minister Joschka Fischer. He resigned from all leading party positions and
only occasionally attends the Bundestag (parliament) as a backbencher. However,
he has now resurfaced in the midst of the controversy about the anti-Muslim
cartoons and the escalating dispute with Iran. In a long contribution that appeared February 11 in the Süddeutsche Zeitung,
Fischer advocates the stepping up of Europe’s military role in the Middle East.
“The Middle East
will go through a deep crisis of transformation lasting perhaps two to three
decades, which bring great risks and dangers,” writes Fischer. Europe will not be able to
“stand aloof from the dislocation, crises and conflicts of this region, which
is so central to its own security.” The crisis will force “Europe
to grow up very fast in security policy terms .” It must begin to “think about
a second line, beside the elements of partnership, dialogue, cooperation
and the aid given to transform [the region], to include security guarantees and elements of an effective
and simultaneously convincing defence [policy].”
In plain language, this means that in
future Europe should increasingly pursue its interests in the Middle
East using military means. Apart from diplomatic and economic
activities (“partnership, dialogue, cooperation”), military activities
(“security guarantees and defence”), will increasingly come to the fore.
Fischer is advancing these arguments
at a time when political debate in Germany
and Europe includes discussion of a possible military strike against Iran.
One
week earlier, at the Munich Security Conference, Chancellor Angela Merkel
(Christian Democratic Union—CDU) had drawn a parallel between the Iranian
government and the Nazi regime, warning against adopting a policy of
“appeasement,” as the Western powers had done with Hitler in the 1930s. At the same time, she had declared that Germany
was ready to accept greater military responsibility alongside the US.
When the Social Democratic Party (SPD) chairman Matthias Platzeck
responded by saying that military options against Iran should be excluded, he
came under fierce attack from the CDU and from his own party. The SPD’s defence
policy spokesman Rainer Arnold and deputy chairman of the parliamentary foreign
affairs committee Hans Ulrich Klose (SPD) insisted in Bild newspaper that the
use of military threats was vital; comments echoed by several CDU
politicians. Meanwhile, Platzeck’s position as a leading member of the SPD is
being questioned.
At the weekend, the British Sunday
Telegraph reported about Pentagon plans for a military strike against Iranian
nuclear facilities. The article said that details of targets, bomb payloads and
logistics had already been calculated. The attack would probably be made by B2
stealth bombers, which can fly from the US carrying up to 18 tonnes of
precision weapons, as well as by submarine-launched rockets. According
to the Telegraph, present planning in the Pentagon goes far beyond the usual
routine operations. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is being kept
continually up to date.
Fischer’s contribution in the Süddeutsche Zeitung is expressly on the
side of Merkel and the US. Although he regards an air strike against Iranian nuclear
facilities as risky, and the invasion and occupation of the country as
“irresponsible,” he does support stepping up the threat of force.
Precisely for Europe,
“the present crisis concerns its own security,” writes Fischer. “Looking away
or putting a better face on things is no use.” In contrast to the run-up to the
Iraq war, Iran’s nuclear
programme “poses a genuine security threat.” Talking to Tehran “only continues to make sense, while
they remain in serious negotiations. If discussions only serve to cover up and
play for time, they are the wrong way [to proceed].”
Fischer’s first proposal is a
“strategy of economic and political isolation,” which should be accompanied by
a comprehensive offer for the full normalization of relations if Teheran
accedes. “Only in the context of [Tehran] either facing isolation or accepting
what is on offer can the consensus of the international community be
maintained,” he writes.
The Iraq
war was also prepared in a similar manner. UN sanctions, at that time supported
by the SPD-Green government of Schröder and Fischer, merely established the
preconditions for the war.
The Greens and war
Fischer’s
latest outburst has once again shattered the myth that the Greens are in any
way opposed to war and imperialism. The opposite is
the case. The real “service” provided by the Greens consists in the fact that they opened the door
for German military missions abroad, after a period of decades following the
Second World War during which the German armed forces were pledged to a purely
domestic defensive role. This is why the autodidact and former street
fighter Joschka Fischer was tolerated as foreign minister for seven years, an
office that is normally reserved for the most trusted representatives of the
political establishment.
Fischer answered initial fears that German
foreign policy might change direction under him with the words: “There is no Green foreign policy,
but only a German foreign policy.” During his term of office, he did not
take a single important decision that could not also have been made by a liberal,
conservative or social democratic foreign minister.
The rejection of the Iraq war—which was more of an
initiative by SPD chancellor Gerhard Schröder than Fischer—was not motivated by
fundamental considerations, but by power politics. American advances against Iraq cut across substantial German
interests. Once the war had begun, however, the German government rendered
every conceivable logistical help to the US—from the unrestricted use of bases in Germany,
relieving US troops in Afghanistan,
to the collaboration of the German Secret Service. Only recently, Fischer personally
blocked a parliamentary committee of inquiry into this collaboration.
What
differentiated Fischer from other foreign ministers was his ability to win
fresh social support for a policy of military intervention. In the midst of the Yugoslavia
crisis, for which German foreign policy was substantially to blame, he
stood the argument that had traditionally been used against such interventions
on its head. Whereas there had previously
been a consensus that German troops should not be despatched to the Balkans
because of the crimes committed there by Hitler’s armies in the Second World
War, Fischer now declared that the
memory of Auschwitz obliges Germany
to act militarily against “ethnic cleansing.” On the basis of this same reasoning, the Greens supported
the NATO bombing of Belgrade
and sided with the Albanian nationalists in Kosovo.
A section of the Green rank-and-file
followed Fischer down this road. Since then, the Greens, whose roots go back to the protest movement
against the Vietnam War and which still advocated a pacifist course in their
1998 election programme, have become the most vociferous proponents of German
military intervention—from Afghanistan
to the Horn of Africa.
Fischer’s latest utterances go a step
further. When he talks about Europe needing to
“grow up in security policy terms,” he means deploying the military in
situations which exceed current parameters.
It was “correct,” he writes, that after
the September 11, 2001 attacks “the status quo was no longer acceptable in the
Middle East, not only for the US
government but also for Europe.” From the
outset, the Iraq
war was “in its strategic core, a war of regional re-organization.” However, Washington’s strategy for the Iraq war “massively underestimated
the scope, the harshness, the duration and the costs of this challenge.” Now
one confronts “grim alternatives”—as the article he has written is titled.
According
to Fischer, the election victory of Hamas meant losing a partner for the international
peace plan, the so-called Road Map. On the other hand, the danger exists that Iran or Saudi Arabia could finance the
Palestinians if the West does not cooperate with Hamas. In Iraq, the US is stuck in
a quandary. Both options, staying or withdrawing, have more negative than positive
consequences. Only by
“increasing engagement” is it possible to break out of this “lose-lose
situation,” but the majority of Americans are not ready for this. And as we
have already seen, Fischer regards developments in Iran
as a “genuine security threat” for Europe.