Gauland and Lafontaine Are in Agreement on This Matter

Oskar Lafontaine is left-wing; Alexander Gauland is right-wing. On this subject, however, the two are in agreement. With regards to the refugee crisis, they have both identified the same guilty party.

How times change! As Alexander Gauland was leading politics for the Hessian CDU right-wing politician Walter Wallmann, Oskar Lafontaine was front man for the left-wing SPD party and the most promising “grandchild” of Willy Brandt.* Even if they had agreed politically at that time, neither one party nor the other would have admitted this publicly. This was due to the political landscape at the time.

Since then, much time has passed. Lafontaine has moved from the SPD to the Left Party, and Alexander Gauland has become a dominant figure as deputy chairman of the national-conservative party – AfD (“Alternative for Germany”). Therefore, one could conclude that with regard to political developments, these two political figures are as far apart now as they were back then, if not even more so.

But in reality, this could not be further from the truth! Today, some 30 years later, things are very different. With regard to foreign policy, the two do not want to be seen as having the same opinion; however, the left-wing politician from the Saarland and the right-wing politician from Hessen are confusingly closely allied. In other words, the distance between these two individuals and the rest of the political spectrum could hardly be greater.

“The US Is Responsible for the Stream of Refugees”

And when Gauland and Lafontaine consider the world from this distance, the U.S. appears to be quite different in comparison to the opinions of the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats and the Greens.

So Gauland is now letting it be known that he finds the way the U.S. is behaving in the refugee crisis quite insolent. He came to this conclusion following the statement from White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. When Earnest was questioned as to whether the U.S. would accept more refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, he answered as follows: “Europe has the capability to solve this problem themselves.”

This statement drove Gauland crazy. “The U.S. has had an equal share in creating the refugee situation – especially within Iraq,” he ranted. Furthermore, he declared that “the U.S. Army’s war of aggression against Iraq in 2003 has strongly destabilized the region and has thereby allowed the Islamic State to emerge.” The “irresponsibility and cynicism” that it is now displaying simply makes the stream of refugees, who are surging into Europe, a responsibility for the Europeans. A nation of world power such as the U.S. has the moral obligation to bear the consequences of its failed world politics. “As part of its much-cited trans-Atlantic friendship, the United States should take responsibility and should take part in cleaning up the broken pieces that it has left behind,” said Gauland.

“F— US Imperialism”

Lafontaine agrees with this statement. “Who set the Middle East on fire?” he asks, and then immediately answers his own question, “The U.S.A. was the first to set the Middle East on fire!” Together with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the U.S. would have delivered weapons there, he said at a panel discussion at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation last year. “The U.S. was the first to strengthen the Islamic State group. And now we have to go there and put out the fire that they have incited with the most ridiculous argument that one can imagine. And now we have the take all the responsibility?” Lafontaine complained.

That was long before he went a step further during U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter’s visit to Europe in June this year when he wrote “F— U.S. Imperialism” on his Facebook page.

Even today, however, Alexander Gauland will not allow himself to get carried away by such bullying. First, he is not interested in Facebook, and second, the Jaguar driver is a great lover of British manners. And Lafontaine’s reprimand is certainly the highest form of contempt.

*Editor’s note: CDU refers to Germany’s Christian Democrat Party, and SPD refers to Germany’s Social Democratic Party.