DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - GERMANY/IRAN: GERMANS MORE WORRIED ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING & THEIR OWN POVERTY...IRAN & THEIR NUKES...WHO CARES?!?

Whistling in the Dark
By Henryk M. Broder

As Iran becomes a nuclear power, and the IAEA admits it may have underestimated Tehran's progress toward a bomb, no one -- at least in Germany -- seems to care. Why?
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Next to "kindergarten," "kaffeeklatsch" and "weltanschauung," "angst" may the most well known of German words. Fear and anxiety aren't seen as signs of weakness in Germany, but as evidence of rationality.

At the moment two major fears are rampant across the land: fear of global destruction and fear of a personal slide into poverty. About 60 percent of young Germans under 29 years of age are worried about their own social decline. But Minister of the Environment Sigmar Gabriel likens the threat of global warming to the nuclear arms race between East and West in the days of the Cold War. Carbon dioxide emissions, in other words, are the modern-day version of the mid-range nuclear warheads that were once lined up on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Exaggerated as it may be, this comparison reflects the current mood in Germany fairly well. The "nuclear holocaust," which many westerners tried to escape once upon a time in the "nuclear-free zones" of their own kitchens, has lost its horror. It's been replaced by the notion that Germany might drown after the ice caps melt. Fear of global climate catastrophe is so great that hardly any German would be surprised to see crocodiles climb out of Rhine.

But no one here seems to notice the one danger that has been developing systematically for years -- that of an Iranian nuclear bomb. This oversight is all the more peculiar because Germans hardly ever miss their chance to feel and articulate Angst. What's stopping them now? Why the serenity and composure in the face of Iran's burgeoning nuclear program?

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Pertinent Links:

1) Whistling in the Dark