As in my impression, Merkel is a cold-calculating power politician who tailors what she says as a function of the power groups and sectors of public opinion she tries to rely on at the moment, what I wonder is whom she wants to please. SPD voters she wants to draw over to the CDU? A CDU base that was less-than-enthusiastic about Pflüger's foreign policy line? Or did she pre-empt a media or public opinion outcry had she wetnt just all friendly to Washington? Or did Schäuble gave her some less obvious advice? *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
But, still, there is a point to your thought: Merkel's socialisation as an active politician took place during the peaceful revolution in 1989 in Eastern Germany when she became spokeswoman of the more or less pacifist civil rights group Demokratischer Aufbruch. In her whole political life until today, she did never give the impression of being more hawkish than the SPD - with the sole exception of the war in Iraq.
