Zacarias Moussaoui, the 37-year-old French national of Moroccan descent who has confessed to being a co-conspirator in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, has been sentenced to life in a high-security prison following a two-month trial. The jury spent a week deliberating whether to sentence him to death instead, something many believe Moussaoui would have preferred, as it would have given him the status of a martyr. Police arrested Moussaoui in August 2001 for violating United States immigration law and he was incarcerated at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks. The extent to which Moussaoui was aware of plans for the attacks, or perhaps even involved in drafting them, remains unclear.

German editorials devoted to the Moussaoui trial on Friday offer a peculiar blend of praise and criticism. Two of three editorials praise the trial as a fair one, but then draw attention to the almost 300 men detained without charges in Guantánamo; one editorial insists that the trial has dramatically exposed the tenuous nature of the US administration's respect for the country's constitution.

An editorial in the conservative daily Die Welt defines the Moussaoui verdict as "honorable," reiterating the widespread view that the court would have done Moussaoui a favor by sentencing him to death: "The United States is not giving Moussaoui the insane satisfaction of killing him and sending him to paradise as a martyr -- and that's a good thing." Given Moussaoui's consistently unrepentant stance and repeated mockery of the court -- his "idiotic triumphalism," in the commentator's words -- life in prison is the only appropriate punishment: "No virgins for the co-conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks, whose only regret was that more people didn't die," the commentator writes. He then goes on to praise the balanced way in which the trial was conducted, reminding readers that "the refusal of a fair trial, which is common practice in Guantánamo, would have constituted a genuine defeat for America." The editorial ends on a critical note, stressing that 490 men are still being held without charges in Guantánamo, and adding that "Zacarias Moussaoui alone cannot save American honor."

"Right Triumphs Over Arbitrariness" is the title of an editorial on the Moussaoui verdict in today's issue of the center-left daily Süddeutsche Zeitung. Here too, praise of the jury that decided the Moussaoui case is followed by criticism of the Bush administration. "The jury in the case 'USA vs. Zacarias Moussaoui' has done its country a service," the editorialist writes, "and it has simultaneously taught the current US administration a humiliating lesson, showing the country and the world that the American constitutional state is alive and well, and quite capable of reacting adequately to Islamic terror" -- without the suspension of civil rights and conventional legal protocol. Despite the "tremendous pressure" the jury was exposed to -- with the "trauma" of the Sept. 11 attacks being evoked over and over by numerous witnesses and Moussaoui himself gloating over the various descriptions of human suffering -- justice prevailed over the desire for vengeance: "It was a fair trial." The editorial also ends with a reference to the hundreds of men held at Guantánamo, "whom the US administration is accusing of nothing else than what Moussaoui was accused of, but without granting them a fair trial."

An editorial in the center-left Berliner Zeitung takes an entirely different approach, arguing not so much that Moussaoui's fair trial was humiliating for a US administration that tends towards ignoring legal protocol when confronting suspected terrorists, but rather that the comparatively lenient verdict "spared the White House a humiliating situation." According to the paper, the decision not to sentence Moussaoui to death reflects the "doubts" that even the state prosecutors were plagued by, given the the fact that "even Judge Leonie Brinkema questioned the reliability of Moussaoui's confession." The available evidence "doesn't prove that Moussaoui was involved in planning or organizing the Sept. 11 attacks," the editorial emphasizes. He also points out that Ramzi Binalshibh and Khaled Sheik Mohammed, the two Islamic fundamentalists who were captured in 2002 and are thought to have masterminded the attacks, have both denied that Moussaoui was involved in any way. In other words, "the evidence that would have allowed for sentencing Moussaoui to death was simply too thin." What is more, the repeated postponement of the trial was not a shining example of legal protocol being respected, but rather "made a mockery" of such protocol, the paper argues. The commentator adds that the reasons for the delay were "mainly political," reminding readers that Moussaoui had threatened to disclose information about the extent to which Washington was aware of the impending Sept. 11 attacks, but failed to act on its knowledge; it would simply have been inopportune, the commentator maintains, to have the accused "expose the mishaps and failures of the US intelligence community" at a time when the US was gearing up for the invasion of Iraq.

-- Max Henninger, 11:00 am, CET

Exchanging Niceties in Washington

German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited US President Bush in Washington this week. The trip is widely seen as the latest instalment in a lengthy process of renewed rapprochement between Berlin and Washington, after relations cooled during the invasion of Iraq. The main focus of the talks was developing a common strategy for confronting Iran; both the US and Germany have been highly critical not just of Iran's refusal to suspend its nuclear program, but also of Iranian President Ahmadinejad's aggressive statements on Israel.

In this week's editorials, German commentators emphasize the shift in transatlantic relations that has taken place in recent months -- from the coolness that characterized the Berlin-Washington relationship while Schröder was in power, to the amicable behaviour that Merkel and Bush have displayed. Commentators also agree, however, that agreement between Germany and the US does not in itself constitute a solution to the question of Iran.

The conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung points out that the current conflict over Iran ought not to be too hastily compared to the escalation that preceded the US-led invasion of Iraq: "Iran is different from Iraq by virtue of the fact that it is the second conflict in the Gulf, and one that is developing at a time when the first conflict has not yet been resolved." The commentator goes on to express approval for Merkel's calls for "concerted international action against Iran" and contrasts this approach with that of Merkel's predecessor Schröder, "who set out to divide the West in order to exert pressure on the USA, and who achieved the first of these two goals, but not the second." The commentator immediately adds, however, that a successful resolution of the conflict with Iran depends on more than just amicable relations between Washington and Berlin: "The new German-American consensus will be effective only when Tehran no longer has reason to believe that Russia and China will protect it."

An editorial in the left-leaning daily Berliner Zeitung begins by citing Merkel's remarks on the need for a diplomatic solution. It then raises the question of whether Merkel's desire for a diplomatic solution is nothing more than a pious hope. "Merkel ought to have admitted that the political choices taken so far to deal with Iran have led only to deadlock," the commentator argues, emphasizing that Iran has shown no intention to bow to international pressure and pointing out that the proposal to impose sanctions on Iran would probably not be supported by China and the Russian Federation. "Merkel's vision of the international community acting together is a pipe dream," the commentator argues, concluding that at this point the only sensible solution would be for Bush and Ahmadinejad to negotiate face to face: "It wouldn't be such a difficult gesture for Bush; he should opt for it if he's genuinely interested in preventing Iran from obtaining the bomb -- otherwise he'll be to blame for an escalation of the conflict."

The left-wing daily Die Tageszeitung features a similarly critical editorial. The two commentators point out that the legacy of the meeting between Merkel and Bush seems to consist in little more than "niceties" -- a point also made by an adjacent cartoon, which sees the two heads of state blowing kisses at each other and features the caption "The Political Message from Washington." Behind the numerous displays of affection lies a political void, the commentators argue. They speak of Merkel's "fundamental lack of a foreign policy strategy" and point out "that many problems that characterize the transatlantic relationship remain unsolved." More specifically, "geopolitical shifts since the end of the Cold War -- shifts that involve the USA focusing its attention more on the Arab and Asian regions than on Europe -- necessarily entail a loss of importance for German-US relations." Ultimately, the displays of sympathy made by Merkel and Bush are just so much fluff, because "the USA will continue to act unilaterally whenever their vital interests are at stake," the commentators maintain. They insist that Merkel "has no answer" to this problem and that Bush's lack of reaction to her criticism of detainees being held in violation of conventional legal protocol in Guantánamo confirms this. With most other important actors in the transatlantic relationship -- Bush, Blair and Chirac -- facing the end of their terms, the commentator admits, Merkel might "display greater leadership skills," crafting "her own Atlantic position" and "establishing a more stable political relationship between Europe and the USA, one that works in favour of Germany." But since "demonstrating leadership requires knowing what one wants," Berlin will have to stop "dancing to the tune set by Washington." Applied to Iran, this means "Merkel will have to pull off the stunt of putting the brakes on the US administration's logic of escalation while convincing the other major powers not to abandon the goal of an Iran without nuclear weapons."