NYTimes.com Search The New York Times Search Options divide go to Member Center Log Out Welcome, trachten0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This page is print-ready, and this article will remain available for 90 days. Instructions for Saving | About this Service | Member Center ------------------------------------------------------------------------ September 15, 2002, Sunday FOREIGN DESK For Now, Trading Allies for Votes By STEVEN ERLANGER ( News Analysis ) 1258 words BERLIN, Sept. 14 -- The German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, may just win the German election by running against America. In a set of polls just a week before next Sunday's vote, Mr. Schröder is pulling ahead of his conservative rival, Edmund Stoiber. The margin is narrow, but the momentum is clear -- and so is the reason. Appealing to Germany's much avowed love of peace, Mr. Schröder has campaigned as the leader who will say no to President Bush's plans for war in Iraq. Mr. Schröder has cast doubt on the wisdom of the policy, on the evidence of any new threat from Iraq, and even on Mr. Bush's motivation, suggesting that Mr. Bush has ''changed the goal'' from getting arms inspectors back into Iraq to ''regime change.'' Suddenly, the clichés about the close German-American relationship seem hollow. Under the pressure of his campaign, Mr. Schröder has outraged Mr. Bush, senior American officials say, shocked Germany's European allies, disconcerted his own Foreign Ministry, and no doubt pleased Saddam Hussein. But Mr. Schröder may also find himself enough votes to avoid becoming the first German chancellor since World War II to lose an election for a second term. Without question, officials and analysts say, damage has been done to the glossy relationship between Germany and its closest ally, the United States. But the extent of the damage is a matter of some debate. American officials say Mr. Bush has lost confidence in Mr. Schröder and is personally offended by his open lack of good faith, especially after Mr. Bush promised Mr. Schröder when they met here in May that no decision would be made on Iraq until after the German election. Mr. Bush, these officials suggest, will never again listen seriously to Mr. Schröder. For his part, Mr. Schröder insists that he is devoted to the alliance and is acting as a good friend must: with the open, blunt discussion that Americans value. Surely if Mr. Stoiber manages to turn the trend around with only a week to go and ends up as chancellor, the United States will be relieved. Mr. Stoiber, no advocate of war with Iraq, has been careful to take the French position -- a war can only be mandated by the United Nations Security Council after Iraq is given at least one more chance to let the arms inspectors do their work. But Mr. Stoiber has not found it politic to defend Mr. Bush in a Germany where the American president has lost public confidence in squabbles over the Kyoto treaty on the environment, the International Criminal Court and the urgency of attacking Iraq. Mr. Stoiber also has wavered. First he wanted to say nothing at all on Iraq, then he talked about keeping ''options open'' in a ''hypothetical circumstance,'' and then he emphasized the need for United Nations approval. It was only on Friday, in a last debate in Parliament, that he accused Mr. Schröder of ''anti-Americanism'' and of ''playing with people's fears'' about war to divert attention from the poor economy. But many Germans seem to fear American military action in Iraq more than they fear Mr. Hussein. So when Mr. Schröder answered by simply repeating that ''Germany will not take part in a war on Iraq,'' whether supported by the United Nations or otherwise, ''Mr. Stoiber could only sound like a warmonger,'' said Henning Riecke of the German Council on Foreign Relations. Elizabeth Pond, editor of the trans-Atlantic edition of ''Internationale Politik,'' a German foreign-policy quarterly, sees ''a real danger of lasting damage'' in relations. If there is a war against Iraq, she says, ''Germany can't afford to go its own special way and remain isolated.'' Mr. Schröder, she said, ''will have to find some way to walk back up the plank, but it will just reinforce the consequences for both sides.'' In 20 years of watching European-American relations, she said, things are at their worst. American and European identities are going in different directions, ''and I don't think the opinion polls reflect the depth of the estrangement.'' Karl Kaiser, the director of the German Council on Foreign Relations and a lifelong nurturer of the German-American alliance, is troubled by Mr. Schröder's willingness ''to exploit this deep-seated desire of Germans to have peace,'' which some, he said, excluding himself, ''consider to be anti-American.'' Germany's Nazi past had been a strong argument never to engage in military action, Mr. Kaiser said. ''But with the misery of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, the argument was turned around -- that because of Germany's past, the country had to take part in military action there.'' Mr. Schröder and his foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, are considered to have made a historic contribution, which only Germany's left could have done, to push the country to take up military responsibilities to its NATO and European allies. Germany participated in the 1999 Kosovo war, in peacekeeping activities in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, and again in Afghanistan, where German special forces have fought alongside the Americans and where German troops make up a large part of the peacekeeping force in Kabul. The United States gave Mr. Schröder credit for putting his own job on the line to push German participation through Parliament. But that credit has now been squandered, American officials say. After the election, both sides will face problems, Mr. Kaiser said. The Americans will return to a multilateral approach, and Germany will have to come back to some form of participation. But Mr. Kaiser also faults officials in Washington. ''We would never have had this problem so sharply had the American administration had a major dialogue with a close ally instead of issuing rhetorical denunciations of what have been the principles of our common policy for more than a decade,'' he said. Josef Janning, deputy director of the Center for Applied Policy in Munich, is concerned about the long-term consequences. ''After the elections, the Germans will try to return to business as usual, but Bush will remember this,'' he said. ''I fear that in Europe, too, Germany may be seen as a less serious partner -- because of its failed defense reform and its unsteady policy course in a crisis like this one.'' Germany has had a longstanding desire for a permanent seat on the Security Council beside Britain and France. But even German Foreign Ministry officials now acknowledge that the United States will oppose any such change. For Stefan Kornelius, the editorial page editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung, both Mr. Bush and Mr. Schröder are ''merciless populists'' playing to domestic audiences, ''both ready to sacrifice the classic tools of foreign policy to their overriding goals.'' The irony, he suggested, is that Mr. Schröder's position on Iraq weakens the faction at the United Nations that could put the brakes on Mr. Bush. ''Thus the chancellor has raised the risk of war, rather than reduced it. Bush need not pay any heed to his querulous allies, to his German brother in spirit, ever again.'' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company