The shameful behavior of its parliamentary group in the vote on the rescue operation in Afghanistan last week has shown once again why the Left Party should by no means participate in a federal government: it is not possible to pursue a responsible foreign and security policy. Therefore, the SPD and the Greens endanger their own credibility if they do not want to rule out a coalition with them - as understandable as that may be in view of the current polls for party tactical considerations. This applies even more to the Greens than to the SPD.
In foreign policy, the Left Party today has many traits of the worse side of the Greens in the early years. They broke away from it in a long process that was painful for the party and its voters, but which at the same time proved seriousness and ability to learn. In recent years, the Greens have amassed moral capital by positioning themselves more clearly and uncompromisingly than the other parties represented in the Bundestag on the authoritarian regimes in Russia and China and the challenge they pose to the democracies. Serious thoughts of a government with a party that is so duplicitous as to assert pure pacifist doctrine on the one hand, but show understanding of Putin's aggressive policy on the other, would call thirty years of green evolution into question.