Good Cop, Bad Cop
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder may have done for his country’s international relations what Gray Davis has done for his (and, alas, my) state’s power industry, but now the A.P. reports that Foreign Minister and Vice-Chancellor Joschka Fischer refuses to rule out German particaption in a war against Iraq. Schröder himself remains silent on the issue, effectively standing by his original promise/threat to stay out of the Iraqi conflict no matter what.
There are at least two ironic twists on this good-cop-bad-cop game. First, Schröder and Fischer’s respective party affiliations suggest that if anybody should be playing the role of pacifist/anti-American bad cop, it ought to be Fischer, the Green, not Schröder, the SPD “moderate.” Second, a state-by-state analysis of the 2002 election suggests that had Germany not reunified at the time it did (with support from the U.S. but opposition from the other three occupying forces peacekeeping nations - and with tepid support, at best, from Schröder’s own SPD at the time), Schröder and his party probably would not have won the election at all.
Thanks to Stefan Sharkansky for the link - and for the original observation that Schröder’s 2002 re-election was a regional victory.
