German conservative interior minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has come out with a bold initiative to provide asylum for thousands of Iraqi Christians forced to leave their homeland in recent years because of religious persecution at the hands of Muslim extremist groups, writes Ulf Gartzke in the The Weekly Standard Blog:

According to the Schaeuble plan, which is backed by the interior ministers of the 16 German states, Iraqi Christians would be allowed to stay in Germany until conditions on the ground in Iraq have improved to the point where they can return home. While the Interior Ministry has not officially come out with any concrete refugees quotas, Berlin insiders believe that Germany could end up accepting anywhere between 5,000 and 7,000 Iraqi Christians per year.

Related post in the Atlantic Review: Small Town in Sweden Accepted More Iraqi Refugees than the Entire United States

The United States has admitted less than 5,000 Iraqi refugees between April 2003 through the end of March while Sweden has accepted 34,000 since 2003 according to Congressman Alcee Hastings, chairman of the Helsinki Commission, an independent US government agency led by members of Congress.

The International Herald Tribune writes that the commission held a hearing with Anders Lago, the mayor of Sodertalje, Sweden. He said that his small city of about 80,000 was now home to nearly 6,000 Iraqis. "More refugees than the United States and Canada together."

The IHT also points out that "the Bush administration said Thursday it remained optimistic it would meet its goal of admitting 12,000 Iraqi refugees by the end of September."

Related articles in the Atlantic Community by Jan Bittner: Iraqi Refugees: The West Overlooks a Major Crisis and Iraqi Refugees: Open Western Doors to the Most Vulnerable, referring to the Iraqi Christians in particular.

Dialog International scans the German press coverage regarding the Iraq war anniversary and translates a Sueddeutsche Zeitung interview with Gunter Pleuger, Germany's ambassador to the United Nations during the run-up to the war.  Pleuger speaks about his impressions of Colin Powell's presentation at the UN Security Council:

It was all very surreal. Most of us in the UN auditorium knew that what Powell was presenting had no basis in reality. But we couldn't imagine that Colin Powell would deliberately present falsehoods.

I beg to differ with Dialog International's the headline "Bush's War Enters its Sixth Year." It is America's war. A majority of Americans were in favor of the war in 2003. The United States is a democracy with various powerful branches of government and with a free press. Thus I would not blame the war on Bush only. Writing in Foreign Policy Magazine (subscribers only) Alasdair Roberts described Iraq as "The War We Deserve."

And Gerd at Anglofritz is fed up with the Iraq Blame Game, specifically US accusations of Germany regarding "Curveball." Related post in the Atlantic Review: Schadenfreude? How the Smearing of Iraq War Critics Has Changed

Endnote: Think Progress writes about a book by Chile's ambassador to the UN: U.S. ‘threatened’ countries that didn’t support Iraq war. (Link fixed)

At my day job at Atlantic Community, we have published quite a few interesting articles on US-Polish issues. Polish perspectives are under-reported in the German and American mass media, but they are important because Poland is one of Europe's bigger countries, is considered very Pro-American and was seen as the primary "New Europe" country, a term that is less frequently used these days, but is still controversial.

Marek Swierczynski, a journalist at the Polish TV channel TVP, reflects on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war:

Poland's decision to join the "coalition of the willing" has left the military stretched beyond capacity, the society in serious mistrust of their leaders and perception of a joint effort for a good cause seriously damaged. It took 25 lives 5 years and 3 governments to rethink and withdraw.

Ryan R. Miller of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington, DC. writes about Poland's Iran Option:

Possible Polish-Iranian energy cooperation puts U.S. policy makers between a rock and a hard place, as America finds itself committed both to isolating the Islamic Republic and supporting Polish efforts to outflank Russia's Gazprom.

Wess Mitchell, who is the Director of Research at CEPA, outlines recent developments between the United States and Poland regarding the US missile defense program. He concludes that relations between Poland and Russia are likely to deteriorate and Tusk may have compromised himself by acting so decisively this early in his term: Missile Defense: Poland Has Less Room to Maneuver.

Anna Nadgrodkiewicz sums up contentious issues in Polish-American relations: Polish troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the necessity of easing visa requirements, and the proposed missile defense shield. See her article Managing Image and Expectations.

Marek Swierczynski  sees NATO at a Crossroad in a second article:

Just before the NATO summit in Bucharest, the differences on what and how the Alliance should do in the future seem all but rising on both sides of the Atlantic. The Warsaw conference on NATO's Transformation made fundamental divides clearly visible. (...) The new NATO members seem to live in a Neverland. Professor Kuzniar assessed that the Alliance is the only force of global reach and capabilities. Wrong. There is no such thing as NATO global capability. There is the US global capability and to be more precise it is one of the US Navy.

It's the same procedure as every year: Millions of Germans watch "Dinner for One" every New Year's Eve since 1972. It is "as big a tradition in Germany as the crystal ball drop is in New York's Times Square," writes Patrick Donahue for Bloomberg. You can watch the 10 minutes British comedy on Youtube. It is so funny, it never got dubbed into German. As Observing Hermann points out: "A bit strange maybe, but aren't most traditions - when they're not yours, I mean?"

Many in the media write every year that this New Year's Eve tradition is strange and that this silly slapstick never got popular in the UK or the US. Of course, I could point out that US upholders of moral standards probably do not like to broadcast all that drinking and the sexual reference in the end. But that is all silly and not important.

The end of a year should be a time for reflection, I believe. It's worthwhile to remember all the unknown people who have done good in the real world. I try to ignore the many "year in review"-articles that feature silly people that made the headlines.  The media does not write much about the many relief workers in war and natural disaster zones around the world. At least not while they are alive. Marla Ruzicka from California got big press coverage after she was killed in a car bomb explosion in Bagdad in April 2005.

December 31 was her birthday. Read last year's Tribute to Marla Ruzicka and other Idealists Risking their Lives out there. 

Actually, seriousness and silliness serve both their distinct purposes. It's all about finding the right balance in life between work and entertainment. Marla would definitely agree. And with these superficial words of wisdom 2007 comes to an end. Thank you for reading Atlantic Review. Stay tuned in 2008. All the best for the new year.

Casualties in Iraq have decreased a bit, European leaders speak more softly and Russia is a bit more assertive. Now some on the right feel uplifted and apparently assume that the kids in Europe are running to their daddy America.

At the weekend, I wrote about Charles Krauthammer's claim that "the rise of external threats to our allies has concentrated their minds on the need for the American connection." Victor Davis Hanson made similar claims in the National Review Online:

In the build-up to the invasion, anti-Americanism in Europe reached a near frenzy. It was whipped up by French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and evoked warnings of an eternal split in the Atlantic Alliance. If Iraq had proved a catalyst for this expression of near hatred - fueled by long-standing angers and envies - it soon, however, proved to be a catharsis as well.

Both leaders overplayed their hands when the U.S. had already begun downsizing its NATO deployments in Germany. Elsewhere, Europeans started to have second thoughts about alienating America at a time of rising Russian belligerency, and suffered from increased worry over radical Islamic terrorists, at home and abroad. The result is that their successors, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, are staunchly pro-American in ways their previous governments were not, even well before the Iraq War."

I don't think Chirac and Schroeder were the ones who "overplayed their hands," if you know what I mean... Besides, I wonder why Victor Davis Hanson considers Sarkozy and Merkel "staunchly pro-American." I'd thought that military historians would be a bit more skeptical about the rhetoric of politicians. What staunchly pro-American policy have Merkel and Sarkozy implemented?

Or perhaps what we are seeing here is a trend of lowered expectations, which one commenter recently put this way: "Six years ago [America's] message to the world was 'you're with us or you're against us.' Now it's 'well, so long as you're not against us...'"

Yet another way to look at it is: Europeans have not contributed very much to Iraq and "the good war" in Afghanistan. Many Americans don't see Europe as a crucial ally who has the power to help in America's hours of need. Thus nice statements and withholding public criticism is the only thing to expect from Europeans. If we Europeans want to be taken more seriously, we need to offer more.

American bloggers and their readers react with surprise and sarcasm to European calls for continued US engagement in Iraq. That's my main conclusion of the reactions to the Atlantic Community's survey of European analysts. Twenty blogs have linked to various parts of our survey results.

European analysts believe that American withdrawal from Iraq would spell disaster. Increased refugee flows, regional instability, cross-border violence, higher oil prices, terrorism within Europe, and increased American isolationism were the main predictions noted by 14 European policy analysts. I have interviewed them for the

What I found very interesting was that among all the gloomy scenarios, one analyst from IFRI in Paris suggested that the regional conflagration could benefit the West: "low-level protracted warfare between the Saudis (also Al Qaida) and the Iranians through local proxies would tie them and wear them down, perhaps to the point where most of their respective energies would be focused on Iraq."

I had, for five months, people sitting outside my home, going into my garden in San Francisco, angering neighbors, hanging their clothes from trees, building all kinds of things -- Buddhas? I don't know what they were -- couches, sofas, chairs, permanent living facilities on my front sidewalk. (...)

If they were poor and they were sleeping on my sidewalk, they would be arrested for loitering, but because they have 'Impeach Bush' across their chest, it's the First Amendment.

This is so funny. And sad! Quotes are taken from the Washington Post.  Chris Jones at Redstate considers it "the funniest thing I've ever heard." Well, I would not got that far. I might be living in the supposedly humorless Germany, but I have heard funnier things.

JustOneMinute (via TMV) comments on this as well and quotes an article in the SF Chronicle about changing attitudes on homelessness in San Francisco, America's most liberal/progressive city and Nancy Pelosi's hometown. JustOneMinute concludes: "What's the old saying - a conservative is a liberal who has been thrown up on by reality?"

Hey, Nancy Pelosi was very supportive of Cindy Sheehan, when she camped close to Bush's ranch in Crawford... Now Pelosi and Sheehan seem to have different opinions about each other's tactics (camping and funding the Iraq war). According to an August article in the SF Chronicle Sheehan announced her intention to run against Pelosi in her SF district.

ENDNOTE: To balance the above criticism of the top Democrat in Congress, I would like to give big kudos to Senator Barack Obama for not wearing the American Flag pin like all (?) other ambitious politicians.

I like his reasoning that the pin has become a substitute for "true patriotism" and that he prefers to "try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism." In Europe, especially in Germany, flags are not as prominently displayed as in the US. Very very few politicians wear (tiny) pins with the flag of their country.