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  Squabbling over Obama: Berlin Split over How to Deal with New US Administration

Squabbling over Obama Berlin Split over How to Deal with New US Administration

By SPIEGEL Staff

Part 2: Things Are not Easy with this New President

The tone is different in Steinmeier's Germany. The foreign minister is inundating the Americans with offers of cooperation. For instance, he plans to work together with the United States on such important issues as expanding the G-8 group of industrialized nations, creating a nuclear-free world, slowing down climate change and reforming NATO. And just in case Obama comes up with the idea of tackling all of these things without Steinmeier, the German foreign minister set out his positions in an open letter to the president published in SPIEGEL.

A letter from a cabinet minister to a designated head of state is considered presumptuous from the perspective of protocol alone. Merkel's foreign policy advisor, Christoph Heusgen, pointedly inquired in Steinmeier's office as to what letterhead was used for the trans-Atlantic missive.

None of this matters to Steinmeier. He will fly to Iraq this month with a delegation of economic and cultural officials. In Baghdad, Steinmeier will offer the Iraqis reconstruction aid, while at the same time supporting major German companies' efforts to acquire lucrative infrastructure contracts.

The diplomatic activity in Iraq is perhaps the most spectacular signal of rapprochement. In taking these steps, Steinmeier -- the political heir to former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who famously opposed the Iraq war -- intends to bring about the "end of Germany's quarantine" against Washington's Iraq policy, say officials at the German Foreign Ministry.

When it comes to Iran, Steinmeier wants to show that he is willing to invest in the German-American relationship. Since September, his ministry has been developing an extensive package of new sanctions against Tehran. It calls for excluding additional banks, insurance companies and transportation businesses from trade with the rest of the world -- by United Nations resolution, if possible. The package will not be implemented right away, but instead will provide Obama with a means of applying pressure on Tehran.

Scheduling Conflicts

But Steinmeier's initiative is currently being held up within his own government. The deputy ministers in the Economics and Finance Ministries cancelled a meeting with the Foreign Ministry and the Chancellery two weeks ago, citing scheduling conflicts.

Steinmeier may understand that the ministries are putting on the brakes out of concern for the economy. But the Foreign Ministry is incensed over the Chancellery's efforts to hold up the sanctions initiative. "The Chancellery is keeping its head down," says one diplomat, adding that valuable time in the bid to secure a say for Germany in the US's policy on Iran is being lost as a result.

The new orientation in the war against terrorism is also important to Steinmeier. The German foreign minister plans to take the earliest opportunity to propose to his US counterpart Hillary Clinton that the US and Europe begin a dialogue on questions of international law relating to the war on terror. Such discussions were pointless with the Bush administration.

Such questions also include the controversial issue of accepting detainees from Guantanamo. Steinmeier wants Europe to help the Americans close the notorious prison on Cuba, but his stance has been met with outrage among Christian Democrats.

This explains why there was so much anticipation over what Obama would say to the chancellor about Guantanamo in their telephone conversation. He confirmed that he plans to close the detention camp, but he did not request action from the German side -- nor did he have to.

Even Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, up until now the most vocal opponent of helping Washington by taking Guantanamo inmates, now assumes that there will be a European solution in which several countries accept a few detainees each.

But officials at Germany's Interior Ministry and intelligence agencies shudder at the possible consequences of such a political gesture to Obama. There is now a list of 57 names of Guantanamo prisoners that the Americans have scheduled for release and who are not considered high-ranking terrorists. It is a list of 57 problems.

Is Germany the Best Destination?

It includes such illustrious cases as that of Tunisian national Abdul Bin Mohammed Ourgy, who the Americans say is a member of al-Qaida and fought against Afghanistan's Northern Alliance in Tora Bora in late 2001. Another man on the list is Rafiq Bin Bashir al-Hami, a fellow Tunisian who already knows Germany. In the summer of 1996, al-Hami entered Germany under a false name and applied for asylum. The courts rejected his application because it was clearly unfounded. Their decision became legally binding in 1999.

He disappeared in November 1998. He is believed to have subsequently attended a terrorist training camp near Kandahar in Afghanistan. US troops arrested him in January 2002. Someone like al-Hami would be a candidate for a German solution. The Americans cannot deport him to Tunisia, where he would face torture and death. But is Germany the best destination for him?

Two Uzbeks, who are believed to be members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and were captured during fighting in Afghanistan in late 2001, are also on the US list. In a video released at the beginning of this year, the IMU threatened Germany and sought to recruit volunteers for jihad. Under these circumstances, bringing two of the group's members to Germany for humanitarian reasons would be difficult to justify from the standpoint of security policy.

On the other hand, the 17 Uyghurs on the list, members of a Muslim minority in China, are considered relatively harmless, and yet their case promises to have diplomatic implications. Chinese delegations have appeared at the Chancellery several times to complain about how dangerous the renegade exiles supposedly are. This raises the question of what is more important to the German government: showing consideration for Beijing's wishes or making a gesture of goodwill to the Americans?

Things are not easy with this new president. Because he is so persuasive, it is difficult to express German interests that contradict his policies. But these interests are certainly bound to fail if they are conceived and expressed by two Germanys. It would be fatal for Merkel and Steinmeier to be squabbling over Obama while the rest of the world develops a new order.

The US president plans to make a trip to Germany soon, but not to Berlin. In early April, Obama will attend a summit meeting to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of NATO. The cities he will experience on that occasion are relatively low-profile places, both in southwestern Germany: Kehl and Baden-Baden.

RALF BESTE, MATTHIAS GEBAUER, DIRK KURBJUWEIT, HOLGER STARK, GABOR STEINGART

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

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