Germany’s most photogenic minister URSULA VON DER LEYEN, Germany’s first female defence minister and a possible successor to Angela Merkel as chancellor, likes a good photo opportunity. One that backfired recently had her standing under a dramatic sky with an army transport aircraft in the background, gazing into the distance as though on the look out for geopolitical derring-do. The derision was instantaneous. The image matched both her ambition and the vision she outlined in January of Germany’s armed forces playing a bigger role in international crises. Given post-war Germany’s radical pacifism, that was controversial.She is now at risk of failing her first two practical tests. Last month she dispatched German army volunteers to Africa to help in the struggle against Ebola. And although Germany has not joined its allies in bombing the Islamic State (IS), she sent weapons to the beleaguered Iraqi Kurds. Sensing another photo-op, she boarded a Transall transport plane and flew to Iraq for a ceremonial delivery. But the anti-tank weapons, rifles and machine guns had not arrived, nor the German trainers, because the planes carrying…
