Leadership Quote by Joschka Fischer

The sentence tries to sound like pragmatic problem-solving, but it accidentally exposes the political magic trick: distance as virtue. By declaring readiness to train “new Iraqi forces outside Iraq,” Fischer frames exile as efficiency, as if the central problem is geography rather than legitimacy. The follow-up, “We did it in Abu Dhabi,” lands like a credential stamp - not an argument, but a reassurance meant for nervous publics and wary allies: we have a template, we have a controlled environment, we can do this without the messiness of Baghdad.

The subtext is about managing risk and optics. Training an army on Iraqi soil would force trainers, diplomats, and voters to confront occupation dynamics, insurgent violence, and the question of whose interests the “new” forces actually serve. Training abroad reduces casualties and headlines; it also reduces accountability. It implies a belief that state-building can be modular: assemble security forces off-site, then deploy them back into a fractured country like a finished product.

Context matters. Fischer, a German foreign minister shaped by postwar restraint and the political backlash to the Iraq War, is speaking from within a Europe that wanted influence without entanglement. “Outside Iraq” signals a compromise between doing nothing and doing too much. Abu Dhabi signals the emerging logic of the early 2000s security landscape: Gulf partners provide infrastructure and insulation, Western states provide expertise, Iraq provides the battlefield consequences. The line’s quiet cynicism is that sovereignty is being rebuilt somewhere else.