Ostpolitik is for useful idiots

Unless you're Otto von Bismarck or Hans von Seeckt. An article in Spiegel Online takes on Gospodin Putin:

Putin made no effort to smile as he met with [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel -- who currently holds the European Union's rotating presidency -- and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso on Friday. The two delegations sat opposing each other, a bit like arms-control negotiators during the Cold War, in a pavilion built especially for the summit...

Putin is no longer the same leader who addressed the German parliament in September 2001. Back then he swore to follow "the spirit of freedom and humanism" while pursuing friendship with Europe. "Russia has always had special feelings for Germany," he said at the time.

But Putin in 2007 personifies Russia's imperial drive for greater power. The country wants to play a leading global role, and Putin has consciously chosen to ditch his soothing words and conciliatory gestures to show his true nature as an uncompromising advocate for Russian interests.

[...]

As the German government's plane left Samara in the early afternoon, the chancellor could barely conceal her frustration. What mattered was that both sides had discussed their different positions, she said. By this logic, holding talks at all was an achievement. Each attack by Putin would therefore be proof that a relationship with Europe is working -- or that a relationship even exists.

[...]

As former chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) assiduously praises the "stability and dependability" of the Putin regime, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the foreign policy point man for the CDU's Bavarian sister party the CSU, sees nothing but danger: "The so-called 'new Ostpolitik' of the Foreign Ministry is a chimera."

[...]

Merkel wants no "equidistance" between Moscow and Washington, and she has no time for the backslapping friendship that Putin maintained with Schröder...

...[Merkel] sat in the second row, determined not to be impressed by the words of a former Soviet spy.

As parliament rose at the end of Putin's speech [to German MPs in September 2001] to applaud, she walked out through the rows of conservative legislators and let out a bit of biting sarcasm. One lawmaker still remembers how she hissed: "Thanks to the KGB."

As for the KGB, watch what you ingest.

Mark C.

Posted by markc at May 23, 2007 06:43 AM