As a foreign minister, Fischer had little impact on the curse of German FP. It was more and more conceived in Kanzleramt - Schröder took over FP, especially in his second term. Fischer became a kind of special envoy, his job was to go to Jerusalem and especially to Washington, to calm the anger over Schröder.

Fischer was never effective as a foreign minister. He has left no heritage. There is nothing notable about his term. Maybe convincing the Greens to go to war in 1998 (Kosovo), but this he did as a leading Green politician, not as a foreign minister. Fischer did not achieve to counterbalance Schröder’s foreign policy, especially not Schröder’s attempts to copy French foreign policy - Chiracs old fashioned power games.

Well, color me unimpressed.

Though kudos to Fischer if he did help stop the arms sales to China.

I’ll remain a Fischer-skeptic re: his friendship. As I am a Euro-skeptic on the same subject.

Thanks for the discussion.

What is the problem? The balance of power in east Asia is shifting. You are merely delaying the near inevitable by a few years at considerable cost in terms of export gain and more importantly Chinese good will. The US will have to arrive at a modus vivendi with China and will have to give up some positions.

Seeking a peaceful relationship with China is in everybody’s interest. So unless there’s clear and present danger of war, selling weapons to China is a good thing. The US is turning a misguided reaction to Tian-Men into an instrument of containment.

Yawn. What is it with Europeans and their egos? As if the US is going to take geo-political advice from Germany.

Yeah, they never get the big stuff wrong… Any day now and they’ll turn that corner and prove everybody wrong on socialism!

Getting back to the original point, I suppose Americans might not think Fischer is a friend because most friends tend to agree about things more than they disagree.

Mrs. Tilton’s analogy is a good example of someone who’s not a friend. First the U.S. is dangerously criminal, then we’re disagreeable about it as well (an even worse crime, to a leftie). Now that she’s established a perfectly objectionable strawman, she demonstrates how you use that strawman to then attack your “friend” (over Uzbekistan of all things).

It’s more important in Europe to espouse friendship with the U.S. than to actually be a friend. That way their criticisms carry more weight, because they come from a professed “friend”. It’s nothing to do with beliefs (we have few in common anymore), everything to do with posture.

Mrs. T. over at A Fistful of Euros links to a nice farewell tribute to Joschka Fischer in Slate by Michael Moore (that is, Michael Scott Moore the writer, not MM the big fat filmmaker). Not only is it unusual

Fischer has shown that he cares about the well-being of the Atlantic alliance by supporting the arms emabrgo that is critical to the security of the United States and our Asian allies. While it may not have gotten the play that the Iraq debates have, the potential consequences could have been far more severe (even those of us who are hard core Atlanticists in the Democratic Party find lifting the embargo unacceptable becuase of its impact on the East Asian balance of power).

In losing Fischer, the West has lost one of its best leader who will be sorely missed.

Afraid not.

Fischer’s supporters, most of whom are “watermelons”-green on the outside and red on the inside-generally dislike America more than the average right wing German.

I don’t see anyone of Merkel’s or Stoiber’s persuasion in Germany trying to equate Bush with Hitler, or trying to blame the hurricane tragedy in New Orleans on Bush, only the German (and euro) left does that.

You EUnuchs here gotta get out more. You are starting to believe your own propaganda, sorry.

Tschuss!

I do remember. And they were universal. Which is the problem. An alliance is by definition useful in a controversy only. That is not to say that the strategy of the US in Iraq is wise or even realistic. But I do mean to say that the very public rejection and attempts to stop the US have weakened the Euro-US alliance. Perhaps this was unavoidable sooner or later and perhaps even desirable, but we are kidding ourselves claiming it didn’t happen. And it could have been postponed. Europe could have shut up and cited inability to simply do nothing.

They are not. In fact, this is a major cause of the difficulty they are experiencing. If they were, the country would be quiet and nobody would consider resisting. No, we have to face it. The US is really serious about exporting democracy. They mean it and mean well.

Thus, seeing the good in the US by it’s constitutional embedded checks & balances, and not merit the whole of a population by its temporary governance.

He was foreign minister, not a referee on applied governance methods or a judge on morals of governing. Acting on such categories would be a dereliction of duty.