A painful decision

FOR other weapons exporters, the decision was easy. The Islamic State (IS) has overrun and terrorised swathes of Iraq and Syria. Germany is, with Britain and France, one of Europe’s biggest arms-makers. Fears of the possible genocide of Iraq’s Yazidis and brutality like the beheading of an American journalist, James Foley, have made dealing with IS especially urgent.

Yet the German government tiptoed carefully into its announcement that it had decided to arm Kurdish forces to break IS’s momentum. Germany vocally opposed the 2003 war in Iraq, and the chaos of the past decade there has bolstered voters’ conviction that this was the right decision. Germany’s traditional post-war pacifism has made any involvement, even in less-controversial wars like Kosovo or Afghanistan, ticklish.

The government is keeping its plans vague for now. This has been taken to mean that the deliveries will, at first, include bulletproof vests, night-goggles and transport. Whether and when deadly weapons will also be supplied is another question. The region has shown a repeated ability to surprise. IS fighters are well armed with weapons originally provided by Americans to...Continue reading