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europe
November 2009 
Carrot or Stick? Cooperation or Confrontation?
Posted on Jun 29th, 2009
by 
Albert
Albert
SPIEGEL ONLINE describes a dilemma for the German Ministry on Foreign Relation and Governement. How to communicate with the Iranian regime? Similar tensions can certainly be spotted in all Europeans governments and the US adminstration or the one in Canada too.
Its revealing when either or dilemmata are emerging. Always the case as much and in so far the underlying dynamics are not understood. The tectonic vertical shifts in geopoltical orbits.
The Center for Human Emergence Middlle East is providing a crystal clear approach and action on the ground now for years. Elza Maalouf is Blogging about perspectives for Integral Poltics.
No package of interventions on level of governments can be sustainable as far as these dimensions are not understood. Governments are generaly fearfully when they do have to admit they know nothing or only a bit.
Yesterday Fareed Zakaria interviewed EX CIA man Robert Baer. The man was honest and confessed nearly nothing is really known about Iran.
However we know the dynamics in mideast. Its high time to bring especially here integral perspectives into real field testing and solution sequences.
Heres to the SPIEGEL article:
Election Violence Upsets Berlin?s Stance on Iran
CARROT OR STICK?
Election Violence Upsets Berlin's Stance on Iran
By Ralf Beste
The German government is divided over how to react to the brutal suppression of protests by the regime in Tehran. Some officials want to continue with a dialogue-centered approach, while others are calling for tougher sanctions.
The German Foreign Ministry is a tightly run institution. The ministry's press office, known as "Department 013," monitors contacts between diplomats and the media. With its roughly 30 employees, the department is one of the largest units within the venerable organization. Its mission is to ensure that all communication to the public remains on message and reflects the views of the foreign minister.
Last week, however, the Foreign Ministry exhibited an unexpected range of opinions on the question of how Germany and the West should interact with Iran following its brutal suppression of the protest movement there. Initially, the German government's human rights commissioner, Günter Nooke, made a thinly veiled call for a coup in Iran. "Our policy is far too soft-footed," Nooke, a member of Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union, wrote in an op-ed for the respected Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Germany should "openly encourage those who are calling for an end to the Islamic Republic," Nooke continued.
Two days later, a senior official from the Foreign Ministry voiced an opinion pointing in precisely the opposite direction. In remarks to the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel, Gernot Erler, a member of the center-left Social Democrats, warned against seeking conflict. On the contrary, he said, it would be a serious mistake to allow the crisis in Iran to jeopardize negotiations with Tehran over its controversial nuclear program. "There is no realistic alternative to continuing to negotiate with Iran and to convince it of the benefits of cooperative behavior," he said. Any other approach, according to Erler, would go against "our own security interests."
Cooperation or confrontation? It is a contradiction that has defined the foreign policy of Berlin's "grand coalition" government of the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats for almost four years, and now it is back on the agenda. China, Russia, Syria and even Cuba have served as theaters in the struggle to define the correct diplomatic approach to authoritarian regimes.
read more..
Its revealing when either or dilemmata are emerging. Always the case as much and in so far the underlying dynamics are not understood. The tectonic vertical shifts in geopoltical orbits.
The Center for Human Emergence Middlle East is providing a crystal clear approach and action on the ground now for years. Elza Maalouf is Blogging about perspectives for Integral Poltics.
No package of interventions on level of governments can be sustainable as far as these dimensions are not understood. Governments are generaly fearfully when they do have to admit they know nothing or only a bit.
Yesterday Fareed Zakaria interviewed EX CIA man Robert Baer. The man was honest and confessed nearly nothing is really known about Iran.
However we know the dynamics in mideast. Its high time to bring especially here integral perspectives into real field testing and solution sequences.
Heres to the SPIEGEL article:
Election Violence Upsets Berlin?s Stance on Iran
CARROT OR STICK?
Election Violence Upsets Berlin's Stance on Iran
By Ralf Beste
The German government is divided over how to react to the brutal suppression of protests by the regime in Tehran. Some officials want to continue with a dialogue-centered approach, while others are calling for tougher sanctions.
The German Foreign Ministry is a tightly run institution. The ministry's press office, known as "Department 013," monitors contacts between diplomats and the media. With its roughly 30 employees, the department is one of the largest units within the venerable organization. Its mission is to ensure that all communication to the public remains on message and reflects the views of the foreign minister.
Last week, however, the Foreign Ministry exhibited an unexpected range of opinions on the question of how Germany and the West should interact with Iran following its brutal suppression of the protest movement there. Initially, the German government's human rights commissioner, Günter Nooke, made a thinly veiled call for a coup in Iran. "Our policy is far too soft-footed," Nooke, a member of Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union, wrote in an op-ed for the respected Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Germany should "openly encourage those who are calling for an end to the Islamic Republic," Nooke continued.
Two days later, a senior official from the Foreign Ministry voiced an opinion pointing in precisely the opposite direction. In remarks to the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel, Gernot Erler, a member of the center-left Social Democrats, warned against seeking conflict. On the contrary, he said, it would be a serious mistake to allow the crisis in Iran to jeopardize negotiations with Tehran over its controversial nuclear program. "There is no realistic alternative to continuing to negotiate with Iran and to convince it of the benefits of cooperative behavior," he said. Any other approach, according to Erler, would go against "our own security interests."
Cooperation or confrontation? It is a contradiction that has defined the foreign policy of Berlin's "grand coalition" government of the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats for almost four years, and now it is back on the agenda. China, Russia, Syria and even Cuba have served as theaters in the struggle to define the correct diplomatic approach to authoritarian regimes.
read more..
Access: Public
