Appeasement, German Style
BERLIN—Traditionally, the point of departure for German foreign policy has been to placate authoritarian Muslim states in the Mideast. Back in 1984, Germany’s foreign minister at the time, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, commenced the so-called “critical dialogue” with the Islamic Republic of Iran—a dose of cognitive therapy that was supposed to spur a change in the behavior of Iran’s revolutionary regime. But, as expatriate Iranian journalist Amir Taheri has written, the sum total of “critical dialogue” between Tehran and Berlin turned out to be jointly criticizing American foreign policy. This and subsequent diplomatic dalliances with despotic Islamic regimes have made Berlin complicit in the perpetuation of instability in the Mideast.
Berlin’s foreign policy fecklessness abroad has been matched by a dangerously meek posture toward radical political Islam at home. Perhaps the most telling example can be found in the treatment of Iranian proxy militia Hezbollah, which enjoys the status of a legal political group in Germany. Hezbollah has 900 active members in Germany, according to the country’s domestic intelligence agency, known as the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. And while the United States has outlawed Hezbollah because of its global terrorist activities, and the United Kingdom has banned its military wing, Germany has contented itself with a fluffy partial ban on Al Manar, the Hezbollah-controlled television station based in Lebanon. Pursuant to Interior Ministry decree, Al Manar is not permitted to broadcast in German hotel rooms, but can continue to air its programming inciting hatred and violence against the West and Israel in private residences.
This soggy approach to political Islam can also be seen in the absence of a clear German war strategy in Afghanistan, which is setting back the Obama Administration’s efforts to dislodge the Taliban and advance democratic institutions in that country. There are approximately 4,300 German troops stationed in Afghanistan, and Germany’s current parliamentary mandate permits as many as 4,500. Yet German officials like newly-minted Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle have blustered that they have little interest in simply “providing troops.”
To be sure, there is a pressing need to pump more resources into civil society programs to reverse the repression of women, rebuild Afghan institutions, and enhance the country’s school system. Yet Westerwelle and Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg have been engaging in linguistic flip-flops by refusing to term the conflict in Afghanistan a war. A commitment to clarity would help draw a line in the sand against radical Islam, and at the same time inspire those German troops forced to grapple with the daunting task of serving as both social workers and trained soldiers.
That Berlin lacks this kind of resolve speaks volumes about the nature of German foreign policy. Germany today is driven by a naïve pacificism that is an outgrowth of the defeat of Nazi Germany, and by the hyper-jingoism that punctuated German foreign policy during the first half of the 20th century. There is also an unsettling absence of historical understanding; the application of massive military force liberated Germany from the Hitler movement, yet the need for the same to emancipate Afghanistan from Taliban oppression has not been sufficiently communicated to “Otto Normalverbraucher,” the German term for “John Q. Public.” According to surveys, a majority of Germans reject a troop presence in northern Afghanistan.
Revolutionary political Islam, whether animated by the mullahs in Iran or the Taliban in Afghanistan, is increasingly downplayed in Germany. That helps to explain the pooh-poohing of domestic and international threats from radical Islamic groups that takes place among German politicians and the public. It also accounts for the tolerance for intimidation that is routinely waged by those same elements.
Take Seyran Ates, the charismatic German-Turkish lawyer and author who has been subjected to death threats because of her legal activities opposing honor killings and forced marriages among Muslims. In late 2009, the publication of her book Islam Needs A Sexual Revolution prompted a new wave of calls for her death. Political and societal indifference to Ates’s situation is reminiscent of that toward Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch-Somali politician and critic of political Islam, who was forced to flee to the United States to escape assassination attempts.
That Ates is forced to be a fugitive because of her criticism of political Islam shows the interplay between an impotent foreign policy and the fear of targeting home-grown radical Islam that is endemic to Germany today. But all is not lost; a clean break with the “critical dialogue” foreign policy approach toward political Islam, together with an assertive domestic approach to the German branch of Hezbollah and greater support for champions of Western freedoms like Ates, can help breathe life into a new role for Berlin in the war on terror.
Benjamin Weinthal is a Berlin-based journalist who writes for Israeli and German publications.
