Syria conflict: Unsolid are always the other

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It is legitimate to condemn Donald Trump's betrayal of his US counterparts in the fight against the Islamic State (IS). It is also right to criticize his erratic course in Syria, which seems to serve only one's own interests. But it is too easy - and cheap. Because Trump meets with his announcement to withdraw the US troops from Syria, a painful point: Why should US soldiers in the backyard of Europe to fight terrorists and provide peace?

Decay of the world order

The answer was obvious for a long time, after all, Americans and Europeans understood themselves as a community of values ​​and interests. The fight against IS was carried out under Trump's predecessor Barack Obama after the usual division of labor, in which the US provided the bulk of the troops, Britain and France a bit, and Germany mainly transferred money.

But for almost three years, Trump has been ruled by a man in Washington who apparently thinks only of himself and praises the supposed right of the strongest that otherwise only autocrats do. With his withdrawal from international conflicts, Trump accelerates the collapse of a world order based on rules and norms.

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What this means for Europe is discussed at the highest level in Brussels: the top candidates in the EU election campaign spoke about the proposal of Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron to create a common European military. The German Bundestag, on the other hand, sometimes gives the impression that some are unaware that a world beyond German borders exists.

We make it too easy

Just recently, the governing coalition laboriously struggled to extend Germany's participation in the international coalition against ISIS. And this at a time when US President Trump had already announced the withdrawal of US troops from Syria and frozen $ 200 million aid to Syria, to demand more commitment from other countries. In addition, according to SPIEGEL information, even the head of the US High Command Centcom had urgently requested the extension of the German surveillance flights.

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That the Bundestag critically deals with possible military operations, is an important achievement. But the debates about extending the mandate against IS often seemed to be preparing for the next domestic political campaign; By contrast, Germany's international responsibility hardly plays a role. For a long time, it even looked as though the German government wanted to abandon the international mission against IS before Trump. The IS remains a global threat, he could quickly regain strength, stated UN experts in the summer.

But it seems that only the others are always unsolid. For example, Germany has been listening for about a year, when the Syrian Kurds ask to pick up German IS supporters and their families from prison in Syria. In this case, too, the German silence is comprehensible in domestic politics: Who wants to risk bringing back people, some of which could be ticking time bombs?

Only we make it too easy for us. Because the alternative is that in the overcrowded and overstretched camps in Syria just the next generation of jihadist leaders grows - as once in the US camp Camp Bucca in Iraq, the hotbed of the IS.