John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA
“Germany Prepares Military Intervention in Syria to Appease Trump
“Offers to air patrol northern Syria to stave off Trump…”
Merkel does her best, but she has some serious vulnerabilities that the thugs now running American foreign policy are able to exploit.
If you have an "ally" who never stops putting pressure on you and who threatens you behind the scenes with "consequences," unless you are a truly audacious and brave statesman, it is almost impossible not to bend, at least somewhat.
It is the degree of the bending that becomes the topic of "negotiations" with the United States.
Merkel is always concerned that the US will impose serious new sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia.
It is a vital project for Germany. Without it, the country faces severe energy shortages in a couple of years. Of course, there is the alternative of buying costly LNG shipped from America, but in economic and competitive terms, that is a non-starter. However, in even avoiding it, because the US has tried pushing its LNG down Germany’s throat, you again put yourself in an unfavorable light with American authorities asking and demanding many different things of you.
Were it the United States, or Israel, facing something like a serious near-future energy shortage, it would of course insist on its absolute importance, and there would be no negotiations of any kind.
But we have the world's bully throwing its weight around in a country that has for years been extremely passive and submissive. The German psyche of course was immensely affected by all the horrors of WWII, a terrible defeat, guilt over atrocities, and being occupied, as it is to this day.
Germany is also concerned about the new international European payment system intended to help Iran survive the ravages of America's all-out assault on its economic interests and intended to keep Iran faithful to its side of the international nuclear agreement that the US tore-up like an angry child. America doesn't like that idea at all.
Further, Germany, more than any country, naturally, has been very self-demeaning towards Israel and its many demands over the years. It has treated Israel with exceptional generosity, in everything from paying truly massive reparations to building it a small fleet of advanced submarines at knock-down prices.
It is obviously extremely hard for Germany to disagree strongly with Israel on anything, and on the matters of American-occupied Syria and the American aggression towards Iran, it is Israel behind the scenes making the demands of Trump, completely. The United States itself has absolutely no national interest in pursuing either of those initiatives, and neither does Germany.
Trump has pushed his own country into a quagmire with his soliciting big funds and support, against the possible impeachment he feared and for 2020 re-election funding, from wealthy Americans more interested in Israel than in almost anything else, and he paid a big price for that support, just part of which is having appointed teeth-baring baboons like Bolton and Pompeo to important and sensitive offices.
Germany understands all of that, I'm sure, but it would never say so. And the shadow of Israel just adds to pressures from the United States around sanctions over Nord Stream 2 and the new international payment system helping Iran plus still other matters.
So, for now, Germany has made this offer of assistance to America’s illegal presence in Syria. It isn’t huge in the way of things, and it remains to be seen whether it will be accepted as adequate in any way and, also, whether it will have any effect around America’s other demands and pressures.
This case provides a good microcosm of how difficult America’s new aggressive rampage has made it to bring any reason to bear in international affairs. It’s even more complex than what I’ve outlined. For example, there are all the sanctions against Russia that the US has insisted its European allies honor, as they have for several years, even though honoring them is literally costing billions in trade, the export of both manufactured goods and farm products to Russia.
And yet another factor is the massive, pitiful migrations of refugees to Europe. All of it actually caused by America’s lunatic Neocon wars and bombing in a great many countries. It then takes no responsibility for what it did, leaving Europe, much closer to the tragedy, to try sorting things out.
The Trump types even add insult to injury by haranguing about migrants and about Muslims in general. I don’t believe it possible to imagine a much uglier situation, like the plot line for an atrocious horror movie.
