Germany's Moral Compass Points East: Money Trumps Values
German opposition leader Friedrich Merz's trip to Saudi Arabia, meeting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), is framed by Deutsche Welle as Germany 'seeking closer partnerships' to diversify energy sources. This surface-level explanation, however, misses the underlying pattern of selective morality in Western foreign policy. CASE A: Saudi Arabia's Red Carpet Treatment Today Merz's meeting with
MbS, who the CIA concluded in 2021 approved the 2018 assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, exemplifies a normalization trend. Western leaders, after initial outrage and performative sanctions, are now quick to re-engage with the Saudi regime. The framing is always pragmatic: 'diversifying supply chains,' 'energy security,' or 'regional stability.' The official narrative emphasizes
transactional outcomes, downplaying or omitting the systemic human rights abuses, including mass executions, suppression of dissent, and the devastating humanitarian crisis in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia has a leading role. This isn't Mere Merz's doing. In 2022, then-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also visited Saudi Arabia, meeting MbS and signing energy agreements (DW, 2022). CASE B: The Consistent
Condemnation of 'Adversaries' Contrast this with Germany's (and the broader West's) consistent, often aggressive, stance against countries like Iran or Venezuela. Both are routinely sanctioned and criticized for alleged human rights violations, autocratic governance, and regional destabilization. The same German government that rolls out the red carpet for MbS would never afford a similar