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Claire Berlinski @ClaireBerlinski
, 9 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
Yes, you're right. Merkel has been fatally weak in standing up to Orbán, and the cancer is metastasizing. She's also been fatally weak with Erdoğan. She could have said, forthrightly, "The alternative to accepting refugees is paying off Erdoğan to keep them in Turkey--
"That will enable Erdoğan to blackmail us. It will show we care not one bit about the rights and well-being of millions of Turks. We'll sacrifice all hope of helping a decent democracy emerging in Turkey." She should have resigned before doing that.
She's been fatally weak with Russia, for similar reasons--and less often remarked, but true, she's been fatally weak with Russia because she was fatally weak with the German left.
The reason Germany *needs* Nordstream II, which endangers the security of all of Europe, is because she capitulated to Germany’s far-left and agreed to destroy Germany’s nuclear power plants. Merkel's a trained quantum chemist:
She understood full well how irrational the anti-nuclear position is, both from a safety *and* from an environmental perspective--not to mention the geopolitical one. But in giving in, she put all of Europe at risk of Finlandization.
There too, she could have laid out the safety, economic, and environmental case for nuclear power, and she should have resigned before implementing a lunatic policy that would leave Germans unable to heat their homes in the winter without being dependent on Russia.
She capitulated to a bunch of scientifically illiterate fruitcakes on the German left-and she's been fatally weak with the far-right. Everyone involved in the abominations last weekend in Chemnitz should have *already* been in jail.
Clearly, Merkel doesn't like conflict, and believes in compromise. But when too many compromises with illiberal forces add up, you get this Since the United States is now adorned by a downright moron, there's no margin for these kinds of errors.
I would be quite happy to see Merkel replaced by a more ruthless and determined defender of liberal democracy. But I worry she'll just be replaced by someone more ruthless.
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