Politics & Power Quote by Joschka Fischer

“Transitional government” is diplomatic code that tries to make a messy occupation sound like a clean handoff. Fischer frames it as “the beginning of a transfer of sovereignty,” a phrase that does two jobs at once: it acknowledges that sovereignty has been compromised, while carefully avoiding naming who compromised it. The word “beginning” is the tell. It reassures skeptics that something is changing without committing to a timetable, a structure, or an endpoint.

The second sentence narrows the moral debate into two managerial lanes: “Iraqi security” and “moving forward with the political process.” Security is the hard currency of post-invasion legitimacy; if people aren’t safe, every constitutional promise reads like propaganda. But pairing security with “the political process” also smuggles in a hierarchy: first stabilize, then democratize. That’s a familiar post-9/11 argument, and it quietly licenses continued foreign influence as the price of order.

Context matters: Fischer, Germany’s foreign minister during the Iraq War fallout, was speaking from a country that opposed the invasion yet had to live with its consequences inside NATO and Europe. His intent is to sound constructive without endorsing the original project. The subtext: Europe wants an exit from chaos, not a victory lap for Washington. “Transitional” becomes a compromise word - a way to support Iraqi self-rule in principle while signaling that, in practice, sovereignty will be rationed out in stages, under supervision, and under pressure from violence on the ground.