When the Alternative for Germany (AfD) condemned America’s strikes against the Iranian regime last week, the reaction in Washington must have been one of genuine confusion. For months, perhaps years, the party had presented itself as the natural German ally of the Trump movement. AfD politicians travelled to Washington; Alice Weidel was warmly received and endorsed by J.D. Vance at last year’s Munich Security Conference.

In Maga world, the AfD was increasingly spoken of as Germany’s conservative insurgency – a mirror image of how Trump sees his so-called revolt against liberal elites. Then came the first real test.

Tino Chrupalla, the AfD’s co-chairman, declared last week that Donald Trump had ‘started as a president of peace’ but risked becoming a ‘president of war’. The party leadership lamented the ‘renewed destabilisation of the Middle East’. Iran itself barely appeared in their statements. Tehran’s regime – sponsor of militias, builder of missiles, murderer of dissidents – was treated almost as a background detail. The real villain, once again, was Washington.

The more radical fringes of the German right still speak openly of Germany as an ‘occupied country’

The more radical fringes of the German right still speak openly of Germany as an ‘occupied country’

In Republican circles the reaction bordered on disbelief. Had this not been the party that courted the American right? Had its leaders not spent years presenting themselves as ideological cousins of Maga? Yet the truth is that the real mystery is not the AfD’s position. It is that anyone in Washington found it surprising.

The AfD’s response to the Iran strikes was almost identical to that of Sahra Wagenknecht’s far-left alliance. Both condemned the attack. Both called for German neutrality. Both framed the United States as the aggressor. Both avoided describing the Iranian regime as the problem. Germany’s political extremes had once again arrived at........

© The Spectator