Alison Smale in Friday’s NYT on Germany, its secret service and diplomacy:

“The German government issued an unusual public rebuke to its own foreign intelligence service on Thursday over a blunt memo saying that Saudi Arabia was playing an increasingly destabilizing role in the Middle East.
The intelligence agency’s memo risked playing havoc with Berlin’s efforts to show solidarity with France in its military campaign against the Islamic State and to push forward the tentative talks on how to end the Syrian civil war. The Bundestag, the lower house of the German Parliament, is due to vote on Friday on whether to send reconnaissance planes, midair fueling capacity and a frigate to the Middle East to support the French.”

Read the article here.

We could call the German government’s reaction idealism. How it should be is more important than how it is.

Perhaps the BND should be transformed into a think tank.