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The opening to newly elected prime minister Rouhani in Iran began after an aide to Mrs. Clinton, Jake Sullivan met with Iranian representatives in Oman in July 2012. Deputy Secretary of State, William Burns, joined the talks conducted with the help of the Sultan of Oman, so that by the time Rouhani was elected in June 2013 the effort became frutiful. In the case of Cuba the opening was made using Benjamin Rhodes, a 37 year old speechwriter for Obama who worked with him since 2008. This enabled secrecy in the case of the Cuban initiative. Rhodes was helped by Cuba expert Zuniga in the U.S. Special Interests Section in Havana. Rhodes and Sullivan also worked on the opening to Burma's rulers.

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Iran's government drastically cut subsidies for gasoline, electricity and basic food items. Gasoline prices were raised from 1,000 rials (about 10 cents) per liter to 4,000 rials. As a result gasoline consumption is down 14% in early January from the prior month. Use of public transport is up 20%. Fares for Tehran's buses and subway went up by 20%, far less than the price increase for gasoline. The government introduced a $40 per person monthly stipend to soften the impact especially for poor families. Iranians are gradually tightening their belts and adjusting to the price increases, reducing wasteful energy use. Iranians have one of the highest rates of wasteful energy consumption in the world, according to IMF. This is because Iran has so far provided generous subsidies, covering 80% of the cost of energy and basic food items. President Ahmadinejad has introduced the Smart Subsidy Plan which calls for a gradual five year phaseout. These cuts will save $100 billion a year, according to government estimates, and is supported by the IMF. Iran is rigorously monitoring price increases in retail stores to ensure that retailers are not passing on the increases to customers. Trucking and transport businesses are allowed to raise their fees by only 15% to cover rising costs including the 837% fuel price increase....

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What is California's position in nuclear and renewables and does the substance the facts justify the image it promotes of being energy friendly and using renewables? Answer is NO  because only 9% of its total end use energy consumption according to EIA figures (2023) comes from renewables. It uses no coal yet about 60% of its energy is from crude oil. During the current crisis in the war with Iran is California an example to follow? The answer is No because it has not used renewable energy the way Germany has or EU has, and it has not managed its crude oil well by not using domestic crude oil instead relying on imports, which only burden the global needs for crude oil coming from a state with capacity to do lot better. By comparison Germany gets 23% of its total energy consumption from renewables compared to 9% for California, and for Germany 60% of its total electricity production is from renewables compared to 46% for California. EIA data shown here from US government data does not paint a very energy friendly picture. California's imports of crude oil at 75% of consumption and drop in refineries from 48 to 3 shows it has not managed the oil refining side of energy in the best way possible. How does it rate in making good use of energy? Here it uses 174 million BTU's per capita no different than New York at 174 and about the same as Florida and Washington DC, Massachusetts, Maryland.  And Germany has achieved 122 million BTU per capita showing California far behind. How does it rate in using renewables and nuclear? As it is a state with urban and suburban sprawl with large driving distances it uses a lot of crude oil for transportation. Petroleum or crude oil use is 58% of total energy use, Natural gas 25, Renewables are only 3%, electricity generation is 14% of which only 46% is from renewables. California is NOT the model for the US. We have to look elsewhere for answers.   ...

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White House Correspondents Dinner shooting on April 25 2026 at Washington Hilton, the scene of the shooting of Ronald Reagan decades earlier. It is unbelievable that over 2000 guests including the US president and important members of his cabinet would be assembled in a hotel in Washington DC that is not designed for this type of event security. The Washington Post raises questions about the security as the assailant stayed in the hotel. The president DJT says this shows why the White House should have a ballroom or hall that can hold such an event that is designed with security in mind. A 31 year old graduate in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology who worked as a tutor in science subjects was the assailant who was apprehended. Secret Service agents acted quickly to clear the podium where the president and vice president were seated. Most of the people in the hotel ballroom were in complete shock. DJT has not attended previous correspondents dinners saying the media has fake news- much of the press in the US tends to have political leanings that slant the news in one direction or the other and television channels exaggerate the divisions for profit by supplying information tailored to what audiences in their political spectrum want. That may be seen as a clever business strategy when it really hurts the  democratic process that has been nurtured for 250 years. It could be said that young people in particular believe what they are told by media run for profit, opinion created for profit, and this leads to violent behaviour. A robust debate has always taken place in the US- on Iran compare that with the Mexican War under president Polk in the 1850's, before the civil war when Lincoln debated Douglas, under Democrat Harry Truman when he did a whistlestop rail campaign after the war against Republican Wendell Wilkie, yet the fragmentation of rural-urban, white male and white female, within minorities today is excessively and without remorse stoked by the television channels and the newspapers.  ...

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Politicians and political parties are reaching out across religious faction lines to form new coalitions starting with Prime Minister Maliki. This includes insurgents now trying to run in the upcoming elections. They too are working with groups they previously opposed. The reason lies in the Iraqi public's increasing impatience with religious faction based politics.

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Sohrab Ahmari of the WSJ talks to Masrour Barzani at a forward base on the Syria-Iraq border in Dec. 2015, at a time when terrorist attacks in France and the U.S. are shifting public opinion in the UK, Germany and the U.S., as well as France.

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A coalition of Sunni businessmen, Communists, and popular activists led by Moktada al-Sadr from the holy city of Najaf in Iraq takes the lead in Iraq's 2018 elections with 55 seats. This coalition called Sairoon or Moving Forward was put together to fight corruption in Iraqi politics and government. The coalition named Nasr of prime minister Haider a--Abadi won 39 seats, and is seen as likely to work together with Sadr in forming a government. The parliament has 329 seats. Another party of militia members who led the fight against Islamic State Fatah won 45 seats. Sadr has called for less intervention from America and Iran in Iraq's government and plans to cleanup the corruption in government.

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The story from the side of an Shiite Iraqi Brigade commander who served in the Hussain army in the Iran-Iraq war, that shows how the Americans under General Petraeus persevered and won with a new counterinsurgency strategy of clearing an area of militants and then carrying out humnanitarian projects by living in the same areas where the militants lived so to speak spread out among the people, This has worked in the insurgency areas around Ramadi and also in the Mahdi areas in Basra and gives the Iraqi army the confidence to bring safety and law and order to Iraq. The perseverance of the Americans and corrective actions like in this case letting former Iraqi army soldiers enlist and work in the new Iraqi army and letting some of them rebuild their brigades as is the case with Al-Azawi. Gaining the confidence and support of tribal leaders has been another element of this strategy as well as getting some of the insurgents on the American payroll under the Awakening groups. And quite a lot of credit goes to Petraeus for leading this effort against the odds and using unconventional methods that helped get the job done and bring some sense of safety throughout Iraq in an unbelievable turnabout of events....

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How much of the rise in price of oil is from speculators? About 20%. How much money is chasing oil? About $85 billion or thereabouts. What is causing the volatility, price shock atmosphere? Losses in production in Venezuela after a strike, Nigerian production in a backward region (issues of redistribution of wealth and periodic violence), and Iraq (Sunni insurgency). And now the Iran standoff with the USA over nuclear proliferation. According to Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy consulting firm owned by IHS, Iraq is 900,000 barrels a day below its prewar output; Nigeria has shut 530,000 barrels a day; Venezuela is still 400,000 barrels below its prestrike production; and the Gulf of Mexico remains down by 330,000 barrels a day. In all, this amounts to more than two million barrels of disrupted oil, Cambridge Energy estimates. The impasse with Iran on nuclear proliferation is the latest factor in oil prices. One analyst says the hedge funds have come into this commodities market in a big way and are willing to take risks. Energy funds make up 5 percent of the global hedge fund business, with about $60 billion in assets, according to Peter C. Fusaro, principal at the Energy Hedge Fund Center, an online research community. The gains on the oil market have attracted a fresh class of investors: pension funds and mutual funds seeking to diversify their holdings. Their investments have been mostly channeled through a handful of commodity indexes, which have ballooned to $85 billion in a few years, according to Goldman Sachs. Goldman's index holds more than $55 billion, three times the amount in 2002....

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The protests for democracy continue in Syria in May 2011. On May 20 2011, 26 protesters are gunned down. The Assad government continues to crackdown on the protests. Friedman sees the events in Syria having wide reaching impact on the Middle East. He calls it a keystone nation because of relations with Iran, the Golan Heights, the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, the long border with Turkey, the border with Iraq, and Hamas relations with Syria. Compared to Egypt the international community has been for the most part silent in its support for the democracy protests in Syria. Friedman also asks the question about rival sects in Syria and other Arab countries and what happens afterwards. Would a post Assad period lead to people from rival sects putting aside differences and working together to build and sustain a democratic government. He says there is uncertainty but also that something deep down is coming to the top in the Arab world- that Arabs want to be full citizens of their countries with a voice in their government and in the way things are run in their countries. ...

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Here Simon Jenkins in the Guardian looks at the situation in Spain, where independence from Spain for Catalonia, could lead to independence demands from other regions such as the Basque region. He says opposition to devolution of powers to Scotland in the 1980's in Britain led to the drive for independence in Scotland years later. He sees the Spanish government's strong response as not the best way to deal with the situation. A better way is to allow some form of self-rule for regions such as Scotland and Catalonia, enough self-rule to accomodate regional aspirations. He cites the example of Slovakia with peaceful separation as the alternative if no agreement is reached.

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JP Morgan's dealings with New Century in its mortgage business and problems in its mortgage division.

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Ajami makes the point that opinions and attitudes -after the Obama efforts to improve America's standing in the Muslim world - havent changed much since the Bush days. He cites the Pew Global Attitudes Survey for 2009- In Turkey after the Obama Anakra visit favorable rating is only 14%, 69% are unreconciled. In Egypt 27% have favorable view 70% do not, in Pakistan unfavorables actally went up from 63% to 68%. He also points to the situation in Iran where the protester for the fraud in the election of Ahmadinejad did not receive much supprt from Obama, as the Obama administration decided to engage with Ahmadinejad to achieve nuclear settlement. In effect the rhetoric from Obama has not been matched with courage of convicitions , and lacks the courage to turn a new chapter by breaking from the past not just with talk but in real policy changes. And says Ajami the Arabs havve stopped listening to the rhetoric as little has been accomplished by way of change. At the same time false expectations may have been aroused because the Cairo speech was made at the University with the aging Mubarak at Obama's side, and beyond addressing these students the feeling clearly must be that the US would simply continue its policies of supporting old regimes that tolerate no dissent of any kind such as Mubarak's. ...

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The Editorial Board of the WSJ says in this editorial that president Trump showed his negotiating skills to arrange the oil deal with the Saudis and Russia for cuts in production of 9.7 million barrels a day, including cuts by non OPEC G20 countries. The drop in U.S. production, cuts by Canada and the effects of sanctions on Venezuela and Iran should take out about 20 million barrels a day. Demand has fallen by 30 million barrels a day from the pandemic. This should help 11 million workers in the U.S. oil industry.

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The Guardian looks at Iran's role in the Hamas attack on Israel, and its intentions to prevent a deal betwen Israel, Saudi Arabia and the US that was being negotiated this month. It looks at the situation in the Middle East and the role of Egypt, Turkey, UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the crisis,  their historic role of supporting Palestinian rights and how their national interests have shifted over the last three decades to seek friendly relations with Israel, the EU and the US.

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An audio recording of a July 21, 2021 meeting at a Trump golf club in Bedminster, NJ, where Trump and his aides met with people writing an autobiography of Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff, is said to be the turning point that made prosecutors pursue an indictment in this WSJ report. In that recording Mr. Trump is heard showing them a document about a US plan to attack Iran. He did this to dispute a story in the New Yorker, says this report.

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Syria borders Turkey, Israel, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, placing it in a pivotal geographical location. Because of this unique geography what happens in Syria affects Turkey because of the Kurdish minority in Syria, it affects Lebanon because of Syrian support to Hezbollah, it affects Jordan because of demands for democracy there, and it affects Israel because of the Golan Heights. Meantime the Syrian democracy protests continue with the military crackdown by the Assad government, which has ruled Syria since Hafez Assad, an air force commander, took power in 1970. After his death power was passed on to his son, as has happened much too frequently in the Middle East, resulting in the stifling of any movement for change and participation in government. An added complication is that Assad comes from the minority Alawite sect in a largely Sunni country.