A serious scandal is brewing in Germany after the public got wind about a secret decision by the the security cabinet to sell 200 main battle tanks to Saudi Arabia.

The Merkel administration says to its own excuse that the U.S. and Israel did not protest against this sale. That only makes one wonder why they were asked. Ain't Germany sovereign?

But the question is not really about a $1+ billion tank deal with the Saudi, they do have lots of U.S. build M1A1 as well as British Challengers and could easily get more, the question is about the specific version of this first class tank the Saudis have asked for.

The Leopard II A7+ (PSO) variant was specifically developed for "Peace Support Operations". Such Orwellian termed operations, as this video of a pretty lousy military show depicts, consist of suppressing demonstrations and rebellions as well as general fighting in urban terrain.

For fighting against other tanks in the desert a Leopard II A6 version with a 55 caliber length cannon would be much preferable. The Leopard II A7+ (PSO) has a shorter, less capable 44 caliber length cannon which makes it more maneuverable in confined surroundings. It also has less battle protection on the front but instead more all around and above protection against Rocket Propelled Grenades and IEDs. The A7 also has a remote control weapon station for an additional machine gun, special cameras to survey the near surroundings of the tank, an extra communication port for voice contact with troops on foot outside of the tank, a dozer blade to remove barricades as well as several other goodies that do not make much sense in bigger battles but are useful to violently suppress protests.

According to a recent poll 94% of Germans are against weapon exports if those weapons are likely to be used against internal protests.

The Merkel administration is much in a twist over this. On one side it claims that it supports the Arab spring movement for more democracy. On the other side it sells these tanks to the Saudis who recently violently suppressed such a movement in Bahrain, who early this year fought (and badly lost) against the Houti rebels in Yemen and who are generally the most political backward and unjust regime one can think of. Even Merkel's conservative followers despise the Saudis for their support for Salafi preachers in Europe. "Ain't those the terrorists you told us to be afraid about?" they ask.

In reality Merkel is of course part of the U.S./Saudi/Israeli counter revolution alliance which wants to keep the status quo in the "moderate" Middle Eastern regimes. But that is not what she claims. The German public is not yet dumb enough to swallow such hypocrisy.

Officially the government still says nothing about the deal. It is all secret. But the horse is out of the barn now and this will be one more reason why the Merkel government will come down and fall pretty hard.

The really interesting, much asked but not yet answered, questions about this deal are:

• Who did get the various bribes in this deal?
• Who in the very small security cabinet, usually just 5-7 current government ministers, spilled the beans about the deal to the press?

The media summer hole, where real news is sparse, will leave much room for journalists and the public to look into these issues.