Ex Schröder Aide on 9/11: ‘We Thought the Americans Would Overreact’
Caviar-gate wasn’t the only time you landed in the headlines due to an ill-considered remark or an unorthodox approach to diplomacy. In retrospect, might you have needed just a bit more self-restraint?
Steiner: You know, during my time in Bosnia in the 1990s, I worked very closely and very successfully together with Richard Holbrooke, who was President Bill Clinton’s special envoy to the Balkans. He was a diplomat, but he was one of the most direct people I know. Back then, he held a round of talks with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in an Air Force museum where a cruise missile was on display, just to make clear to Milosevic what could be in store for him if he refused to back down. I was never a fan of Talleyrandian diplomacy, which conceals its true motives and spreads an aura of secrecy. I don’t think it works.
.. Steiner: Because we thought that the Americans would overreact in response to the initial shock. For the US, it was a shocking experience to be attacked on their own soil.
SPIEGEL: What do you mean, overreact? Were you afraid that Bush would attack Afghanistan with nuclear weapons?
Steiner: The Americans said at the time that all options were on the table. When I visited Condoleezza Rice in the White House a few days later, I realized that it was more than just a figure of speech.
SPIEGEL: The Americans had developed concrete plans for the use of nuclear weapons in Afghanistan?
Steiner: They really had thought through all scenarios. The papers had been written.