It’s simply breathtaking how suddenly how interesting Iraq has become for Old Europe nations like France and Germany. No sooner does President Obama take office than “stablisation” starts stabilizing the hell out of everything down there.

Nicolas Sarkozy zipped by for a visit to Baghdad last week. Now Frank-Walter Steinmeier himself, Germany’s Foreign Minister and losing chancellor candidate in Germany’s upcoming election, pulled on his obligatory bullet-proof vest and did his unannounced visit thing to check out the stabilization process first hand.

And to kickstart that big business networking made-in-Germany thing all over again, of course. The last visit by a German foreign minister here was back in 1987. The Germans made tons of money with Sadam back in those days, you must understand.

“My visit shows that we want to support the new Iraq as it moves towards consolidating democracy,” Steinmeier said. “Germany wants to assist Iraq in reconstruction,” he added. “And in handing out lucrative contracts from a country with some of the world’s largest petroleum reserves,” he didn’t say, but thought.

The Germans will now open up an economic office in Baghdad with a branch in Kurdish Irbil, both places indescribable hell holes of civil war sectarian violience, chaos and death, just a few weeks ago.

“We have seen in the last months important successes in stabilizing the country.”