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As instability and chaos continue to take root in Europe, ringing alarm bells across the Western world, Putin would be a happy man. If there’s one country that combined with its notoriety could benefit most out of a weak Merkel in Germany, it is Russia.

Liberals have much to learn from Merkel’s fall, but are they listening?

Is it possible that the immigration issue has finally come back to undercut Angela Merkel in Germany directly? It may well be because “No recent move has so clearly highlighted the undemocratic, Berlin-dominated nature of European decision making and the gulf between the elite consensus and popular opinion,” writes Ross Douthat in The New York Times.

But in all of this, “what she’s delivered is an opportunity for leaders in Germany and in the wider West to learn from her mistakes,” he writes. “President Trump is a political weakling, not a Caesar; Marine Le Pen can’t break 35 percent of France’s presidential vote; the Islamic State has all-but-fallen. Which means that the custodians of the liberal order, the kind of people wringing their hands over Merkel’s present struggles, still have an opportunity to prove their critics wrong, to show that their worldview is more adaptable to changed circumstances than it has seemed.”

However, to do that effectively liberals across the world need to “take responsibility for foreign policy failures, to admit that post-national utopianism was oversold, to reckon with the social decay and spiritual crisis shadowing the cosmopolitan dream.”

“In Angela Merkel’s Europe right now, that should mean making peace with Brexit, ceasing to pursue ever further political centralization by undemocratic means, breaking up the ’60s-era intellectual cartels that control the commanding heights of culture, creating space for religious resistance to the lure of nihilism and suicide — and accepting that the days of immigration open doors are over, and the careful management of migrant flows is a central challenge for statesmen going forward.”

Has the Western world lost its leader?

The Washington Post takes a more conservative view, however. A weak Merkel is the last thing the West needs, it editorialises.

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel has quietly served as one of the checks and balances on Donald Trump’s presidency. While cultivating a cordial relationship with Mr. Trump — who has boasted about his good relationship with her — Ms. Merkel has assumed leadership in areas from which the United States has stepped back. She has stoutly opposed Russian aggressions and championed humane treatment of refugees and action on climate change. She has appeared to keep Europe’s most powerful country on a centrist course even while other Western democracies were riven by populism.”

“All that means that Ms. Merkel’s failure to form a new governing coalition following September’s elections, which has plunged Germany into an unprecedented postwar political crisis, is a problem for Americans as well. Though there is little danger that the result will be an extremist government, it could very well be a weak one — which is the last thing the West needs at a time when Britain and the United States are both hamstrung by political turmoil.”

“The uncertainty in Berlin could go on for months. If new elections are held, they won’t be scheduled before next year, and current polls show they might produce similar results. No doubt the enemies of Western democracy, led by Vladi­mir Putin, will seek to take advantage of the situation. As for those Americans who have looked to Ms. Merkel as an ally against the excesses of Mr. Trump, it may be time to scale expectations back.”

Russia’s Southern Europe game

It’s not just the political chaos in Germany, however, that Putin would want to take advantage of. To understand Moscow’s intentions in their entirety, it’s worth looking south of Europe as well, suggests a new Atlantic Council report. Simply put, Greece, Italy and Spain ought to beware.

“These countries bore the brunt of Europe’s major crises in the last decade: the 2008 economic crisis and the 2015 refugee crisis. In the aftermath of the economic crisis, Greece, Italy, and Spain experienced double digit unemployment and income drops coupled with reductions to social safety nets,” the report says. “The EU’s response for Europe’s large southern economies was to impose austerity measures. And while in the long run, these policies helped shore up the economies (signs of recovery emerged in 2016), in the short term, they bred resentment among citizens against the EU, mainstream parties, and the Western model of liberal democracy. Then, Syrian refugees began arriving by the thousands on the Italian and Greek shores.”

“It is this ‘volatile socio-economic climate’ that ‘has proven to be fertile ground for Russian overtures’ while providing an opening for political parties oriented toward the East rather than the West. The Kremlin has actively stepped into this opening by providing political and media support to pro-Russian forces, leveraging historical, religious, and cultural ties, and cultivating (either directly or through proxies) a network of pro-Moscow civil society organizations to promote Russia’s goal of weakening the EU and NATO.”

Russia won the Syrian round against the US

There’s another starker, even uglier, evidence of Russian interference in regional politics of other countries. Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, with extensive help from Russia and Iran, is nearing a nearly complete defeat of the rebels who once seemed poised to oust him, and he is now in Russia for a victory lap of sorts, writes Yochi Dreazen in Vox.

“The Syrian leader traveled to the Black Sea resort city of Sochi to publicly thank Russian President Vladimir Putin, his closest ally, and to jointly celebrate that the war seems to be winding down with Assad still in control.

It’s easy to understand why; it’s not every day that two of the world’s most brutal rulers — including one, Assad, who has used chemical weapons against his own people and carpet bombed his cities — pose for a picture.”

“Here at home, the Trump administration vacillated for months about whether the Syrian president needed to eventually give up power before Assad forced Trump’s hand by once again using chemical weapons against his own people. Trump responded with a cruise missile strike against a Syrian military airstrip and renewed calls for Assad’s ouster.

The problem is that Trump, like his predecessors, did nothing of any real significance to push Assad out. Putin, meanwhile, worked hard — and was willing to risk the lives of many of his own troops — to make sure Assad stayed in power.”

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