Votes of Confidence

Last week, the papers were speculating about whether Schröder or Fischer would resign; then came Thursday, followed by the weekend

What a difference a week makes. For German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, this last one began under the shadow of the Security Conference in Munich that had wrapped the previous weekend. The papers were gushing over US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's charm offensive which, so they said, made Schröder's hardline opposition to war in Iraq look darkly stubborn. Rummy had come close to an apology for his slips of the tongue in recent weeks -- that whole "Old Europe" thing, that business about casting Germany in the same lot as Cuba and Libya -- chatted up his own German heritage and seemed to all but gloat in the confidence that, in the wake of Colin Powell's presentation at the UN, all wavering nations would eventually fall in lock step behind the US when it issued marching orders. Rummy cleverly mirrored the position of European peaceniks: The bone he had to pick was not with the German people, but with its government's policies.

And the angle on that government early in the week was that it was breaking up. Schröder's categorical "Nein!" left Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer no breathing room in negotiations with the Americans and their diehard supporters on the one hand and with potential partners in a coalition for peace on the other. Friction between Schröder's Social Democrats (and among them as well) and Fischer's Greens were leading to murmurs of an imminent resignation. One day, it'd be Schröder denying that he was even thinking of stepping down. The next day, it'd be Fischer, Germany's most popular politician by far, issuing no comment on rumors that it'd be him instead.

But suddenly, things started looking up for the "red-green" coalition on Thursday. It's not that, on the day the heads of all parties represented in the Bundestag laid out their positions, Schröder and Fischer exactly rose to rhetorical heights; it's more that, first, Schröder was able to debunk widespread criticism that asserted that his policies were isolating Germany by pointing to support from France, Russia and China. Second, Angela Merkel, head of the Christian Democrats, revealed the poverty of the conservative opposition's arguments in a speech even members of her own party have called "pretty thin sauce." And finally, when Fischer followed, lambasting her for not admitting that the only alternative she offered was war, Social Democrats and Greens were reminded that, for whatever petty differences might arise, they are essentially on the same page.

And then came the weekend. 100,000 were expected to march in anti-war demonstrations in Berlin. Half a million showed. What's more, the numbers of protestors far exceeded expectations in cities all around the world. As Environmental Minister Jürgen Trittin, marching in Berlin, remarked with a note of triumphant sarcasm, "This just shows how isolated Germany has become."

Elsewhere

The Berlin Film Festival wrapped this weekend with prizes going to Michael Winterbottom's searing tale of a pair of Afghan refugees hoping to make their way to a better life in Europe, In This World. More on the winners.

Friday's New York Times included a series on the US-European rift with pieces on the European intellectuals, US politicians, businessfolk on both sides of the Atlantic and pop cultural repercussions all around.

Paul Berman in Slate on why Bush is failing to convince European diplomats like Joschka Fischer.

Jonathan Schwarz writes in openDemocracy, "the American organisations MoveOn, an internet-based network of 600,000 grassroots political activists, and Alternet, a non-profit organisation supporting independent journalism, released an open letter to Europe from US citizens opposed to their government¹s policy toward Iraq. In just the first day, the letter had been signed by tens of thousands of Americans."