Angela Merkel has a migrant “problem” and here’s what it looks like on paper:
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Merkel’s open-door policy to Syrian asylum seekers scored the chancellor some badly needed PR points in the wake of fraught negotiations with Athens during which she and German FinMin Wolfgang Schaeuble were often cast as the miserly villains in Greece’s debt drama.
But enthusiasm for the migrant cause waned in Germany as hundreds of thousands streamed into the country after traversing the so-called “Balkan route”. Lawmakers are divided and the German people are increasingly on edge following the attacks in Paris and the scare in Hannover.
“Suddenly, Europe’s most durable democratic leader faces the most serious political crisis of her decade in office,” E.J. Dionne Jr. writes, in an Op-ed for WaPo [6]. “In opening her country’s borders to what one German official called a 'biblical march' of refugees, Merkel called forth a series of paradoxes,” he continues. “On the one hand, Germans are deeply proud of their response to the migrants as tens of thousands mobilized to welcome them, but the initial glow of national pride is now shadowed by doubts and, in many cases, anger [as] more than 1 million refugees are expected to reach Germany, whose population is roughly 82 million.”
Fortunately, there’s a foolproof way to stem the flow: help destroy the country from which the migrants are fleeing.
France understands this. So does the US. And apparently, so does Britain. Put simply, when people are running from violence, you have to “bomb the hell out of” their ancestral homeland (to quote Trump) in order to make that home a safer place for them. Of course Russia is doing the same thing, but where Moscow gets it wrong is that Vladimir Putin has an actual plan and a roadmap for restoring a strong central government in Syria. That’s no good. What you want is absolute chaos if you truly intend to stop the migrant flow, and that means covertly arming terrorists and raining down bombs on targets with no strategic significance whatsoever.
Obviously, we’re being sarcastic. The point is that the last thing Syrians need is for another country to join the campaign, but that’s exactly what happened on Friday after the German Bundestag voted to approve military action.
In a 445 “for”, 146 “against” (seven abstentions) vote, German lawmakers approved the use of six Tornado reconnaissance jets, and the deployment of a frigate to help "protect" the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. Berlin will also send refueling aircraft and up to 1,200 military personnel. It’s not entirely clear who Germany is “protecting” the French carrier from. Perhaps Berlin is worried about Islamic State’s powerful navy.
Although Germany will not be dropping any actual bombs (at least not for now), Syrians who in many cases dream of one day scraping together the $10,000 to $15,000 they need to make the trip to the German promised land will now be able to look up and see these in the sky:
Nope, nothing intimidating about that if you're a Syrian civilian. Just a "harmless" recon aircraft.
In any event, add six German Panavia Tornado ECRs to the crowded skies above Syria which are already teeming with everything from American F-16s and AC-130s, to French Rafales, to British Eurofighter Typhoons to German long-range strategic bombers.
We've said it before and we'll say it again, the chances of (another) "accident" only grow with each new participant, and that goes double now that the Russians are hyper-sensitive to potentially hostile aircraft and have the S-400s and the Moskva at the ready.
The silver lining: Syrians no longer have to dream of meeting Merkel, she's coming to them...
