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Friedman on how lower oil prices could provide a solution to the nuclear problem with Iran as well as diplomatic solutions to other problems.

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The WSJ editorial says Gen McChrystal may bring the qualities of flexibility and imagination, and intellect, the way General Petraeus did to the war in Iraq. It says Defense Secretary Gates did well with President Obama to bring achange of leadership to the American effort to bring security to the Afghan people from the Taliban militants. It was the leisurely way the NATO effort proceeded under Gen. McKiernan in building the Afghan army- the only remaining institution that commands confidence in the country - that WSJ faults for having gone on too long. The other institutions like the corrupt police, and the failing government of Hamid Karzai, along with the spread of opium farming in the south have led to further deterioration in security.

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Attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen on Sauid Arabia's Aramco oil company installations are adding to geopolitical tensions. Houthi rebels in Yemen are supported by Iran and are in a war with a Saudi Arabia led coalition. This report says that the three year conflict has reached a point where instead of targeting Riyadh with missiles the Yemeni rebels in Sanaa are now targeting oil installations of Saudi Arabia. The rebels ousted a Said supported government in Sanaa and the the Saudis have failed to oust them from Sanaa, yet the conflict continues. The increase in geopolitical tensions between Iran and Saudis is pushing up oil prices along with the collapse of Venezuela's oil industry and production. Prices reached $75 a barrel in April 2018. Damage from a Yemeni missile hit a Saudi tanker in the Red Sea, a latest sign that the conflict could disrupt oil tanker traffic going towards the Suez Canal.  Trump administration plans to scuttle the Iran nuclear deal or renegotiate it are also increasing tensions. France's Macron favors renegotiating it compared to scuttling the whole deal, a point he made at the U.S. Congress this week, saying also that France will respect the nuclear deal with Iran. Tensions throughout the Middle East are now part of the rival powers Iran and Saudi Arabia and their proxy allies in the region seeking more influence. ...

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Turkey's prime minister Erdogan wins a third term. He wins half of the vote and gets 325 seats in parliament. But he fails to get the 330 seats in parliament needed to make changes to the constitution and submit it to a referendum. This also falls short of the 367 absolute majority to get a new constitution adopted by parliament without a referendum. WSJ says the Turkish prime minister appeared to get the message from Turkish voters- any change in the constitution should be done by national consensus and he needs to soften his authoritarian edges. In accepting the results he said: "We'll go to the opposition and we'll seek consultation and consensus. The responsibility has risen and so has our humility." Erogan's party gets credit for managing the economy, increasing exports fourfold in the last ten years and tripling per capita income. This also comes at a critical time in the Middle East as Turkey seeks to provide a role model for Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, Iraq and other countries in the Middle East becoming free from dictatorial rule and trying to establish democracy....

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Sindhi sentiment in Pakistan. Behind the calls for democracy and elections sentiment is gathering in the Sindh that supports looking after Sindhi interests. Because the Punjabi majority in Pakistan has dominated the bureaucracy and the military and looked after the interests of the Punjab. The nature of the Pakistani state not providing safeguards and devolution of power to the provinces, there is some basic underlying tension even without the problems that have been piled on it by the migration of Pashtuns and Punjabis into Hyderabad and Karanchi, and the killings of 2 popular Sindhi politicians in the Bhutto clan, and the army's suppression of a Sindhi revolt in 1983 with harsh treatment of Sindhis. Now the aftermath of the new Bhutto killing is taking a new turn with calls for Sindh and its 38 million people to go its own way. The Bhuttos have not supported it but the sentiment is now appearing to take a life of its own, disregarding Zardari and Bilwal, spouse and son of Benazir, who are said to be of Baluchi descent. The large dam on the upper reaches of the Indus river benefits military officers who own land there but shrinks water supply to the Sindh which is on the lower reaches of the Indus river. This further aggravates tensions. The province is now run by Punjabi associates of Musharraf and this does not help matters as Sindhi interests may have been ignored. If there is sentiment for a separate state, the state of Pakistan that was built in 1947 and how it has shaped itself with Punjabi military running things is not designed to handle that kind of upheaval very well. It lacks the checks and balances, devolution of powers to provinces enough to keep local representation strong, and the avenues of expressing sentiment being kept open for local ethnic communities. The Pakistan military is strong and there are nuclear weapons, but how effective is that if the goodwill and sentiment of the Sindhis is lost. In the long term the only hope may be for an economic union much like that of the EU in South Asia in which the Punjab, Baluchistan, and the Sindh could coexist with India and among themselves in whatever form the political aspect of states takes shape, making the politcal shape of states less relevant, and like the EU putting the years of internecine strife behind them. Looking towards a better economic future, open trade, investment, communication and infrastructure links in Southern Asia and parts of Central Asia and Iran. ...

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Germany's Merz is bringing historic change to Germany that it has not seen since reunification in 1990. Understated and underestimated Merz is different from the career politician chancellors of the past. Merz is a businessperson who headed the German branch of the investment fund Black Rock and from this experience has a keen understanding of the economy, of American and European business, and a direct commonsense approach to issues from defense to modernization. In short he is direct, speaks clearly, and action oriented. Within 5 months DJT has acted on tariffs and a level playing field in world trade and on a new budget with priorities for defense and tax cuts. Merz has in 2 months removed the constitutional debt brake of Merkel, corrected policy errors on illegal migration, passed 5% of GDP on defense and gained approval of added borrowing for 129 billion dollars in 2030, 4 times the 33 billion in 2024 to invest in modernization of Germany's failing infrastructure. Together Merz and DJT have stood up for the principle of no nuclear weapons in Iran, and the refocus of South and Southwest Asia on economic development from tragic and senseless wars. ...

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Moderating prices for oil and commodities and food combined with lower oil prices that help introduce fiscal restraint in the government's spending, would actually help Iran in controlling inflation running at 24% by IMF estimates. And Iran's foreign currency reserves of $82 billion would help cushion Iran as it incurs modest fiscal deficits and help it weather the global financial crisis. And Iran's oil and gas exports are rising for 2008 and 2009 by estimates of IMF and Iranian government with foreign currency reserves estimated at near $100 billion for 2009, though a lot depends on oil price levels for these estimates.

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Issues in dialogue with the Europeans include Guantanamo Bay prisoner relocation, missile bases in Poland and Czech Republic, tensions with Russia, nuclear development in Iran, and Afghanistan.

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Slowly but steadily concrete walls built during the surge to prevent sectarian or other political violence are coming down as Iraq returns to some semblence of normalcy.

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Some key features of the Iraqi effort to retake Ramadi are evident in the effort by new prime minister to keep out Shiite militias called Popular Mobilization Forces from Sunni areas. The effort to retake Ramadi involves American air support and retrained Iraqi units after the disasters in 2014 when Iraqi army units ill equipped and poorly led fled the area. By using tribal forces and Iraqi army units the effort keeps down sectarian tensions- essential for it to work in Sunni areas.

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The U.S. takes in 70,000 refugees a year, but only 1500 Syrian refugees have been taken in by the U.S. by Sept. 2015, as a huge migrant refugee crisis unfolds in Europe. Germany has to make the same background checks and is moving quickly, the U.S. takes 18-24 months. The withdrawal of the U.S. from the Middle East under the Obama administration led to the collapse of the fragile situation in Libya, Iraq and Syria, and the unraveling of these countries, a direct cause of the massive refugee crisis in the region with about half the Syrian population and large parts of Iraqi, Kurdish, and Libyan population dislocated. The result is a massive humanitarian crisis, turning the hopes of the Arab Spring into something no one could have imagined across North Africa. In a small Lutheran church in Frankfurt, Paulskirche, is the German story of a popular movement that spread throughout Europe in 1848, for a transition from autocratic governments to parliamentary democracy. Aspirations similiar to that expressed in the Middle East and North Africa in 2013-2014 in the Arab Spring were expressed in Germany and many parts of Europe in 1848. In the centre of Berlin on the Kurfstendamm lie the bombed but preserved ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, telling the story of the intervening years 1848-1949. It took many years before the same aspirations for liberty found shape in Germany's Public Law of 1949, finally finding a safe resting place after years of failing to unify a people around the ideas of liberty and justice for all, and not nationalism. Germans who had the hardest time waging that fight, by embracing the refugees in a spirit of openness carry on that fight into this century. Paul asks the question- who will lead? A Lutheran pastor's daughter takes up the fight without the slightest hesitation, and full measure of confidence with the words- "Europe will have failed on the question of refugees, if the close connection between it and universal civil rights is destroyed." ...

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Friedman says that the rise of moderate forces in the Islamic countries especially Iran may bring new developments, and it is best to be open to the prospect of changes.

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Many of the candidates in the sixth Republican presidential debate were critical of the way John Kerry handled the issue of U.S. boats and sailors seized and then returned by Iran.

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Eni's investment buying Dominion Resources assets in the Gulf of Mexico for $4.8 billion, and Alaskan acitivity. This balances its investments in areas with more uncertainty such Iran, Nigeria and Kazakhstan.

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China is building a port hub at Chancay that will have an initial 1.5 million TEU or twenty foot long containers capacity. It will be opened by president Xi in November. This megaport will cut the time it takes from South American coastline to Shanghai from 35 days to 25 days. Before this port China trade was conducted through Long Beach or Manzanillo in Mexico. China is now Brazil's largest trading partner and this port offers the possibility of connecting further from Brazil to Peru by land. This does pose new challenges such as crossing the Andes mountains and Brazilian jungle. The port will cost COSCO China's large shipping company $3.5 billion. China has invested in 100 foreign seaports with $30 billion over 2 decades. The port of Piraeus is operated by Chinese companies, and China has invested in a stake in the port of Hamburg, Germany which is the main gateway for Chinese exports into the EU. The US neglected Latin America and India during the three decades in which Reagan and Bush Sr, Bush Jr, engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wasting trillions of dollars, neglecting infrastructure investment in the US, and in Latin America and India. Over two decades the US has invested by comparison trillions of dollars in wars in Iraq starting with Reagan and Weinberger, Bush Sr. in the 1980's, and Bush junior in Afghanistan. Much of the oil dividend of the Middle East wasted by regimes in the region in wars. Not only the US infrastructure was starved of resources, Latin America, India and Indonesia did not receive the investment these countries needed for rapid development. Yet today Reagan and Bush are lauded for their contribution by Baker in WSJ today and by columnists in the NYT. The fall of the Berlin Wall was itself just an episode in the US relations with Russia as Russia and China are competing with the US. Germany itself of the Berlin Wall remains divided (with AfD popular in the East around Dresden), and Germany divided on pursuing policies that lead to worsening relations with Russia. Germany also maintains a strong trading relationship with China including a stake in Hamburg port given to China during the pandemic at a time when the supply chain over concentration in China was being questioned in US, EU, India. ...