To see an expert ply his trade is often a beautiful thing. But to watch Gerhard Schröder do what apparently he does best, which is to push Russian interests in the West in exchange for hundreds of thousands of euros, is an often revolting, stomach-churning disgrace. Shouldn’t we expect higher moral conduct from our former heads of state? Somebody should really let the former chancellor of Germany know that he actually is probably doing more damage than good in representing Russia. Moscow deserves a more credible voice in Europe, and it’s hard to believe anything this guy says even when he might have a point. Yesterday, for example, he gave a speech before a German-Russian business group in Dresden, extolling the virtues of uncritically aligning Germany’s interests with Russia – the subtext of which was of course that the trans-Atlantic relationship should be abandoned or downgraded, and that Berlin’s preferential relationship with Moscow over its loyalty to other EU members would help to disaggregate Europe. He was also there to pitch the war, and convince Germany that it’s perfectly OK for Russia to invade sovereign nations absolutely no consultation with the international community. He told the audience in Dresden, “Europe should accept that Russia, just like any other country, must defend its security interests,” that NATO’s membership talks with Georgia and Ukraine “should be kept off the agenda,” and that Europe shouldn’t look to diversify energy supply because “Russia is reliable, stable and so close to Europe.” To top it all off, he repeated the favorite Russian threat, that if Europe didn’t bend over to Russia’s energy demands, that they would take all this gas and oil and go the Chinese. Interestingly, the very next day Schröder hopped on a flight to Russia to report the results from his assignment to the Kremlin and his employer Vladimir Putin.