Henry Kissinger looks at Germany’s new coalition government and sees trouble:
Both coalition parties know that if they frustrate each other, the coalition will break up and each will face the dilemmas that obliged them to form it in the first place. When the departing chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, attempted marginal reforms, it threatened to split the Social Democratic Party. When Merkel offered a far-reaching, market-oriented alternative, it divided the electorate almost evenly — indeed, with a slight majority for the left if one includes former communists. Thus a deadlock might make the dominant parties irrelevant by producing a major electoral shift to minor parties or to new ones at the extremes of the political spectrum.
Oh, joy – maybe it’ll be these guys.