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RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE//J5 DIRECTORATE (MC)//
RHMFISS/CDRUSAREUR HEIDELBERG GE
RUKAAKC/UDITDUSAREUR HEIDELBERG GE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 07 BERLIN 001483 
 
STATE FOR INR/R/MR, EUR/PAPD, EUR/PPA, EUR/CE, INR/EUC, INR/P, 
SECDEF FOR USDP/ISA/DSAA, DIA FOR DC-4A 
 
VIENNA FOR CSBM, CSCE, PAA 
 
"PERISHABLE INFORMATION -- DO NOT SERVICE" 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.0. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OPRC KMDR KPAO AF XF IR KN US EU KGHG
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: AFGHANISTAN, MIDDLE EAST, IRAN, DPRK, 
U.S.- 
ASIA, EU, ENVIRONMENT;BERLIN 
 
¶1.   Lead Stories Summary 
¶2.   (Afghanistan)   President Karzai's Inauguration 
¶3.   (Middle East)   Israeli Settlement Policy 
¶4.   (Iran)   Nuclear Conflict 
¶5.   (DPRK)   Obama Warning 
¶6.   (U.S.-Asia)   Obama Trip 
¶7.   (EU)   EU Top Jobs 
¶8.   (Environment)   Copenhagen Conference 
 
 
¶1.   Lead Stories Summary 
 
Print media opened with reports on the special EU summit in Brussels 
 
and the inauguration of Afghanistan's President Karzai.  Editorials 
 
focused on the same issues.  ZDF-TV's early evening newscast Heute 
opened with a report on President Karzai taking his oath of office, 
 
while ARD-TV's early evening newscast Tagesschau opened with a story 
 
on the beginning of the talks of EU leaders in Brussels 
 
¶2.   (Afghanistan)   President Karzai's Inauguration 
 
All papers (11/20) carried lengthy reports on President Karzai's 
inauguration emphasizing that the president promised to fight 
corruption and drug trafficking.  Die Welt headlined; "Afghanistan's 
 
President Promises to Fight Corruption," Sueddeutsche carried a 
front- 
page report under the headline: "Karzai Promises the West 
Improvement." Frankfurter Allgemeine opened with a report on its 
front 
page, headlined: "Karzai: In Five Years We Are Better Off." 
 
Many Papers also carried editorials on Karzai's promises. 
Deutschlandfunk (11/19) broadcast the following commentary: "The 
fact 
that Foreign Minister Westerwelle traveled to Kabul to attend the 
inauguration of Afghan President Karzai signals his support for a 
politician who has been kept in office because of electoral fraud. 
 
But NATO set out to bring democracy to Afghanistan.  TQay's 
presence 
of a few ministers with Secretary Hillary Clinton at the helm is 
sending the wrong signals.  The western states did not want to bring 
 
this form of democracy to Afghanistan.  Nevertheless, Karzai is 
needed 
in order to implement at least a few steps towards a positive 
development in Afghanistan.  He must be taken at his word, and he 
must 
now do what he said and what he is being told.  But the political 
and 
military opposition will now present him as a puppet of the western 
 
world.  He will thus lose the remaining support he still enjoys in 
the 
country.  That is why the world must now pin its hopes on the 
regional 
representatives and do so much more than in the past." 
 
Regional radio station Westdeutscher Rundfunk of Cologne (11/19) 
commented: "The international community and Afghan President Karzai 
 
are joined together like Siamese twins.  Either they will have joint 
 
BERLIN 00001483  002 OF 007 
 
 
 
successes, or they will fail together.  The only chance for both 
sides 
to succeed is that they clearly know that this is our last chance. 
In 
his inaugural speech, Karzai addressed the main things even though 
in 
vague terms.  It looked as if Clinton, Westerwelle, and Miliband 
proofread the speech and were thus its authors.  Taliban, 
corruption, 
women's rights, everything was included.  But Karzai will be 
measured 
against his deeds.  He must now quickly prove to the Afghans that he 
 
is serious about them." 
 
Frankfurter Allgemeine (11/20) said in a front-page editorial 
headlined "Oath of Disclosure" that "In view of the discrepancy 
between the high stakes and the disappointing result, the 
international community is losing patience with President Karzai and 
 
his government.  Never before has a president, after his election, 
received so many rebukes from his allies in his congratulatory mail. 
 
The governments in Washington, London, and Berlin know this and, 
nevertheless, they are discussing exit strategies.  The powers that 
be 
on either side of the Atlantic are aware that the previous policy is 
 
no option; each of them wants to get out of Afghanistan because 
their 
peoples want them to get out.  By reinforcing their troops, the 
Americans and British think they can decide and end their campaign 
with one final great battle....  But Afghanistan's stability is 
closely 
linked to that of Pakistan.  And this is the main reason why the 
West 
cannot be indifferent to Afghanistan's fate in the future, even 
though 
there is nothing the West would rather be." 
 
According to Die Welt (11/20), "the statements of many western 
politicians demonstrate how disillusioned the NATO partners have 
become about a politician who was once their man in Kabul and is now 
 
considered a problem.  That is why Karzai at least tried in his 
inaugural speech to make concessions to the West.  Following its 
experience with Karzai over the past few years, the West is well 
advised to remind him of these promises....  But the most important 
 
thing is that the West gets out of this stage of a lack of 
orientation.  A mission that has no goal and no direction is doomed 
to 
failure." 
 
Sueddeutsche Zeitung (11/20) opined: "Karzai's speech does not mean 
a 
thing.  The downtrodden country will not move ahead with words.  The 
 
president has been at the helm in Afghanistan for more than eight 
years now.  This is one truth.  The other one is: The West, too, 
made 
mistakes because it pinned its hopes only on Karzai.  But power in 
Afghanistan rests not primarily with the president but with the 
tribes 
in the regions.  An understanding, including with the Taliban, will 
be 
 
BERLIN 00001483  003 OF 007 
 
 
possible only if regional approaches are strengthened and if the 
president reduces his claim for power.  Karzai's plan to organize a 
 
Lorja Jirga, which he can moderate, is the right approach." 
 
In the view of Handelsblatt (11/20), "the West developed a 
carrot-and- 
stick policy for President Karzai.  The carrot is the warm words and 
a 
continuing flow of money.  The stick is the threat of a troop 
withdrawal and the open attempt to bypass Karzai and to directly 
influence the provincial leaders.  This looks familiar to us, 
because 
such methods were also frequently used in the past, the last time in 
 
Iraq." 
 
Berliner Zeitung (11/20) opined: "The Afghanistan that the West 
would 
like to get and will probably get some day in the future will be an 
 
undemocratic Afghanistan.  It will be a country in which corruption 
 
remains essential for the fabric of society; it will be a country in 
 
which women have no rights, and in which gangs rule.  But it will be 
a 
country in which security forces are so strong that they will be 
able 
to prevent the development of new terrorist training camps, thus 
reducing the danger of attacks in the U.S. and Europe.  This is what 
 
it is all about eight years after the beginning of the adventure in 
 
Afghanistan. It is not democracy, not the rule of law; it is only 
security, our security." 
 
¶3.   (Middle East)   Israeli Settlement Policy 
 
Under the sub-headline: "Barack Obama's Middle East Diplomacy is 
About 
to Fail," Tagesspiegel (11/20) editorialized: "Measured against the 
 
things that are obvious in the Middle East, Barack Obama's Middle 
East 
policy is surprisingly dilettantish, even though his [Mideast 
policy] 
began very favorably with George Mitchell's appointment, with his 
speech in Cairo where Obama presented himself as an honest broker 
and 
with his move to wrestle the two-state concession from Benjamin 
Netanyahu.   But afterwards he lost his political instinct.  Indeed, 
 
Barack Obama is now faced with a pile of debris that is even bigger 
 
than it was at the beginning of his term.  In Israel, his reputation 
 
is at an all-time low and in the Arab world his popularity has 
suffered.  But this is not all.  The fuse is burning at the second 
trouble spot in the region: Iran, which has now rejected the western 
 
offer in the nuclear conflict.  Has Obama a Plan B with respect to 
his 
relations with the Mullahs?  Only two weeks ago, a giant arms 
shipment 
to the Hezbollah militia force in Lebanon was exposed.  And even 
this 
 
BERLIN 00001483  004 OF 007 
 
 
did not prompt Washington to change course.  There are mounting 
indications that Obama's policy of an extended hand is faced with a 
 
debacle." 
 
¶4.   (Iran)   Nuclear Conflict 
 
Handelsblatt (11/20) headlined: "U.S. is getting impatient with 
Iran," 
and added in its intro: "In the nuclear dispute, Iran must prepare 
itself for new sanctions.  After Tehran's rejection of the 
compromise 
deal, Barack Obama noted that he is losing his patience."  Under the 
 
headline "Back in the old trenches," Frankfurter Rundschau (11/20) 
analyzed: "The cat has now been let out of the bag.  The uranium 
compromise between the Vienna authority and the Islamic Republic has 
 
fallen through.  The intermezzo of diplomatic rapprochement is 
over.... 
The deal would have been good for both sides.  Iran would have 
gotten 
civilian nuclear technology and the world community the assurance 
that 
Teheran does not produce a nuclear bomb in the predictable future as 
 
it would lack fissile material.   The nuclear dispute would have 
been 
resolved - at least for the time being.  This is off.  Following a 
tough dispute among Tehran's conservatives, Ayatollah Khamenei 
obviously ended the dispute with his unusually harsh attack on the 
U.S. on the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the American embassy. 
 
All sides involved are now back in their old trenches.  The Iranian 
 
regime is again enjoying itself in the position of a lonesome 
fighter 
against everybody, while the West is getting ready for a new round 
of 
sanctions." 
 
¶5.   (DPRK)   Obama Warning 
 
Under the headline "Nice Words," Frankfurter Allgemeine (11/20) 
commented: "Barack Obama concealed his warning with a lot of 
sweetness, sending his special envoy Bosworth to Pyongyang.  He will 
 
apparently get the message there that Washington is no longer 
prepared 
to accept North Korea's tactics of the recent years.  The problem is 
 
that Bosworth's visit to Pyongyang is the result of these North 
Korean 
tactics.  They were reportedly enraged and left the negotiating 
table 
at the six party talks.  They now make their gracious return 
dependent 
on the talks with the Americans.  If Obama were consistent, he would 
 
send his envoy to China....  Bosworth could suggest that there would 
be 
something valuable for North Korea at a table in China.  Some kind 
of 
a dtente could be the result.  Let's not believe in a 
denuclearization of North Korea.  What would Pyongyang have left if 
it 
gave away its greatest asset?" 
 
BERLIN 00001483  005 OF 007 
 
 
 
¶6.   (U.S.-Asia)   Obama Trip 
 
Norddeutscher Rundfunk radio of Hamburg (11/19) commented: "Barack 
Obama bowed deeply - too deep to Japan's emperor.  Obama's bow to 
the 
Tenno in Tokyo is the picture that will remain from his mammoth tour 
 
to Japan, China, Singapore, and South Korea:  Obama degrading 
himself 
and very small, almost a caricature of himself.   This is a snapshot 
 
that summarizes Obama's eight days in Asia and that depicts a 
president who, in the strongholds of Asian politeness, wanted to do 
 
everything right and use the right forms and who, for this reason, 
did 
not succeed in doing something right, but only played the tunes of 
his 
hosts.  It was a weak performance in Asia, measured against the 
performances of his predecessors.  China as an economic power has 
become more self-confident, tougher and even more uncompromising. 
It 
knows that Obama needs the bundles of dollars from Chinese safes to 
 
finance its record debt policy with money that is used to finance 
rescue and bailout programs for everyone.  That is why Obama's 
latitude in Beijing was restricted right from the start.  Obama is 
right to be really annoyed at China because it manipulates its 
currency in order to make Chinese goods even cheaper than they are 
and 
to stymie any competition.  But this currency scandal should at 
least 
have shown up in one phrase in the minutes, which it did not.  It is 
 
no coincidence that Obama's so-called news conferences were de facto 
 
nothing but empty communiqus....   Obama, who likes to speak so 
brilliantly, simply had nothing to say.  And this speaks volumes 
about 
the trip of a deeply bowed president to Asia." 
 
¶7.   (EU)   EU Top Jobs 
 
ARD-TV's Tagesthemen (11/19) opined: "The result of the negotiations 
 
had a price: two people were nominated for the future EU top jobs, 
who 
have had no opportunity in the past to develop their profiles.... 
They 
might become good people, but nobody yet knows them...  There seems 
to 
be a clear will within Europe not to appoint too powerful people to 
 
these positions.  European leaders don't want to be upstaged by 
'those 
in Brussels.'  Berlin, Paris, London and other national capitals 
want 
to continue to play a strong role.   The appointments of the two EU 
 
top jobs seem to guarantee this.... There were more distinguished 
leaders." 
 
Frankfurter Allgemeine (11/20) wrote in a front-page editorial: 
"This 
team of a conservative from a traditionally pro-European member 
states 
 
BERLIN 00001483  006 OF 007 
 
 
and a Social Democrat from a traditionally skeptical member is 
clearly 
an old-school compromise, so the evening did not go on forever as 
feared.  Only the Eastern Europeans went home with empty hands.... 
Is 
this now the EU that was strengthened by the Lisbon Treaty and that 
 
will now give Europe more weight during international summits? 
Both 
politicians have achieved honorable things: Prime Minister van 
Rompuy's great achievement is to have led the Belgian government 
into 
still waters.  The way Catherine Ashton's pushed the Lisbon Treaty 
through the cliffs of the Upper House was also no small achievement. 
 
However, can these two faces personify the new beginning government 
 
leaders promised when they defended the EU reform against all the 
criticism and lethargy in nation states?   The words 'European 
constitution' were too big for the text of the Lisbon Treaty.  The 
words 'European president' also seem to be too big." 
 
Berliner Zeitung's (11/20) editorial remarked under the headlined 
"Two 
nobodies for Europe" that the decision is "disappointing," adding: 
"The community has picked leaders without personality, without 
visions, and partly at least without experience.  Future Council 
President van Rompuy is an honorable Belgian man who skillfully kept 
 
his country together.   He is not a heavyweight in Europe and the 
world.  The heads of states and governments looked for an 
administrator.  The appointment of Catherine Ashton is even more 
disappointing.  The future chief diplomat has never before dealt 
with 
classic foreign diplomacy.  The facts that she is a Social Democrat, 
 
comes from Britain and is a woman were sufficient for her 
nomination. 
It did not play a role whether she is well plugged-in and knows the 
 
right people in government.  The EU wants to be strong at home and 
abroad.  Looking at van Rompuy and Mrs. Ashton suggests that this 
will 
not be the case." 
 
Tagesspiegel (11/20) bemoaned in a front-page editorial: "Luxemburg 
 
Prime Minister Juncker would have been the perfect choice for the 
post 
of the EU Council president.  He is a powerful expert of the 
European 
mechanisms, who, above all, also represents a small country.  The EU 
 
has gambled away the opportunity the Lisbon Treaty had offered.  It 
 
would have been the time to appoint men and women to the posts of 
the 
EU with its 500 million people whose word would be heard throughout 
 
the world and who could create new confidence between the Europeans 
 
and the institutions in Brussels." 
 
Under the headline "Two Under Secretaries for Europe," FT 
Deutschland 
(11/20) editorialized on the front page:  "Herman who? Catherine 
who? 
 
BERLIN 00001483  007 OF 007 
 
 
Most Europeans have never heard the names of the EU council 
president 
and the high representative before.  Chancellor Merkel, President 
Sarkozy and their European colleagues could have picked more 
charismatic people for the new top jobs, which were created by the 
Lisbon Treaty.  They deliberately decided against it.  They were 
looking for under secretaries who can act in the background and are 
 
not international showoffs.  Belgian Prime Minister van Rompuy and 
EU 
Trade Commissioner Ashton met these job descriptions. The choice of 
 
unknown candidates shows that the powerful government leaders do not 
 
want to be outshone by European officials.  During EU and G20 
summits, 
Merkel and Co. don't want to share the limelight with the EU Council 
 
president and the high representative....  However, the decision 
might 
not necessarily be bad.  The fact that the 27 EU leaders reached an 
 
agreement within hours is a good signal.  After the weeks of 
disputes, 
many had expected a night-long struggle without any results.  The 
Flemish leader van Rompuy has shown an impressive talent to meditate 
 
compromises.   This talent will be helpful in the efforts to 
moderate 
the disputes of the state and government leaders.  Ashton's 
nomination 
also has indisputable advantages: as a permanent member of the UN 
Security Council, Britain is one of Europe's heavyweights.  Hardly 
any 
other country can contribute to increase Europe's might and 
credibility in international diplomacy." 
 
¶8.   (Environment)   Copenhagen Conference 
 
In the view of Frankfurter Allgemeine (11/20) "the chancellor feels 
 
her own commitment that, if there is anybody, who is able and 
willing 
to achieve a success in Copenhagen, then it is herself.  It should 
not 
be decisive whether Barack Obama takes the trouble to travel to 
Copenhagen or whether China is willing to make any kind of 
concessions.  The Europeans and some other nations will follow her 
because her arguments are more farsighted than the ones of her 
opponents.  And, as long as she is convinced that her arguments are 
 
true, she will stick to her goals - for the benefit of future 
generations." 
 
MURPHY