US President Barack Obama sits down this week with German Chancellor Angela Merkel under a cloud of disagreement over the way out of the global financial crisis and Germany’s role in the US-led Afghan war.
The Germans probably will stand pat on their refusal to increase troop strength significantly to the NATO mission in Afghanistan.
Merkel’s unusually harsh public criticism of US financial policy appears to be driven by domestic politics — the chancellor’s need to appear tough in advance of September elections.
Obama and Merkel, who arrived yesterday, are in a period of relationship building. She was particularly close to former president George W. Bush despite his administration’s alienation from much of Europe over the US war in Iraq.
Obama, who has promised to restore a multilateral, consultative approach to US foreign policy, is wildly popular among Europeans, the German public in particular. He paid a visit to Berlin last summer and drew an estimated 200,000 people to a speech that he gave as a presidential candidate.
The German and US leaders have already met twice this year in Germany, at an April NATO summit in Baden-Baden and again earlier this month when Obama visited Buchenwald, the Nazi concentration camp, and Dresden, the German city firebombed by Allied forces near the end of World War II.
They are each said to have been impressed by the other’s pragmatism and non-ideological view of the world, which should make for a successful session of talks today, despite their inherent disagreements.
Iran was expected to sit high on the Obama-Merkel agenda. The chancellor has been tough on the Islamic regime for its crackdown on demonstrators who believe the June 12 election was stolen from reformist presidential challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi.
The German government voiced support for Obama’s most recent response to the unrest, in which he condemned regime attacks on protesters and declared himself “appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings and imprisonments of the last few days.”
A senior German official said Obama’s statements on Tuesday were “in agreement” with his government’s expectations. The official was among a group of government representatives who briefed reporters in advance of the Merkel visit. They spoke anonymously to outline German expectations more freely.
On Afghanistan, differences probably will be papered over. The Germans are expressing gratification over Obama’s new policies there, applauding his greater emphasis on nation-building and development assistance for the deeply backward country.
US officials are believed to have given up on getting more German help in the war, beyond Berlin’s recent agreement to send four AWACS surveillance planes and temporarily deploy 300 troops associated with the mission.
Mark Medish, who worked in the National Security Council of former president Bill Clinton, said the US handling of the recent change of command in Afghanistan actually showed the Europeans that Washington has given up on seeking greater NATO participation in the fight.
“It’s one of the great unreported stories,” said Medish, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
He said the US did not consult its NATO partners when Obama decided to replace General David McKiernan with General Stanley McChrystal as commander of the US-led NATO operation in Afghanistan.
“The way the McChrystal appointment was handled showed the Europeans he is not really counting on them,” Medish said.
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