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Hauslohner describes the situation in Egypt after the ouster of president Morsi by the military in July 2013- the old order from the Mubarak regime is back. Gen. Sissi is deputy prime minister and controls the government and the military plays a critical role as before the elections.

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This editorial in the WSJ after the U.S. presidential election is critical of extreme positions on immigration in the Republican party. It reminds readers that George W. Bush won 40% of the Hispanic vote with some passable Spanish and a friendly attitude on immigration, Romney managed only 29%. It says supporting immigration is a natural position for Republicans because most immigrants are culturally conservative and hard working. It call deportation in large numbers morally wrong and not workable. It also comes as immigration from Mexico is down significantly and many Hispanics are returning to Mexico. Hispanics suffered from the high unemployment in the U.S. following the 2008 crisis making it less attractive to come to the U.S. Growth is also increasing in Mexico with a large middle class and a falling birth rate.

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Elliott Abrams quotes former President George Bush from November 2003 when he asked the question: "Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?" Abrams, former deputy natonal security advisor for President Bush, says the autocratic regimes and dictators of the Middle East have offered a false choice to the US- its us or the Islamists. Roger Cohen also points this out in a recent article in the New York Times. For Tunisia he says this was never defensible. It is a largely secular nation with a literacy rate of 75% and per capita GDP of $9,500, and Ben Ali, the dictator of Tunisia, jailed moderates, human rights advocates, editors, anyone who represented hope and change. Abrams says Mubarak has done the same in Egypt. And he warns that if you make moderate politics impossible as Mubarak in Egypt and Ben Ali in Tunisia have done, then you make extremism more likely. Ruling by emergency decree for decades creates a real emergency, as has happened in Egypt. Bush made that speech at the 20th anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, and he reminded Americans that "sixty years of Western nations excusing and accomodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty." He admits that the Bush administration did not always conduct US diplomacy in this vein, but the President took the lead and the Obama administration's abandonment of that mindset is nothing short of a tragedy. Obama's policy of "engagement" actually endangers the US position as a supporter of liberty and freedom wherever it is stifled or muffled, because it turned a blind eye to the people themselves as it engaged with the dictatorial regimes in the Arab world and other countries. When the elections in Iran were stolen the Obama administration hesitated, waffled in its committment to liberty, fearing that it would affect nuclear negotiations. Obama did not -as of late Friday night Jan 28, 2011- call for free elections or clearly demand democracy. The law school analytical processes that Obama brings to the presidency and the demands of geopolitical diplomacy are impervious to the loud voices demanding freedom in countries denied liberty. Obama has forgotten the very same voices he passionately heard when he wrote in his first book that in the words "we hold these truths to be self-evident" he could hear the spirit of Douglas and Delaney, as well as Jefferson and Lincoln, the struggles of Martin and Malcolm and unheralded marchers to bring the words to life. He could hear the words of interned Japanese families, the voices of Russian Jews in lower East side sweatshops, of dust bowl farmers during the depression, all these voices clamoring for recognition and asking the question about what is community and how it can be reconciled with freedom. This failure to recognize these voices clamoring for freedom and economic opportunity is all the more striking because it was vision and a bold sense of purpose that energized the Obama campaign and both the vision and the bold sense have eluded the administration. Abrams calls for a clear unequivocal committment by the US government in favor of freedom and peaceful efforts to achieve it in the Middle East, because he says that as the demonstrators are telling the world outside supporting freedom is the best policy of all. ...

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A slight shift in American opinion favoring a deal with Iran is shown in a WSJ/NBC poll in July 2015 compared to the poll in April 2015. Support for reaching a nuclear deal with Iran remains stable at 36% in both polls, the opposed drops by 6 percentage points to 17% from 23%, and the percentage of people who say they do not know enough to formulate an opinion goes up to 46% from 40%. The intricacies of a nuclear technology deal and the sites involved lead to a high percentage of don't know enough to give an opinion. Factors hindering a deal include inspection of military sites, and Iranian intentions. Factors favoring reaching a deal now is the risk that this would mean Iran would go back into isolation and the opportunity to work with moderates might be lost. The Rouhani administration was an effort by voters to elect a government that could ease or remove sanctions to improve the economy and living conditions- its failure would lead to Iran losing an opportunity to open up to the world. The pressure from the U.S. Congress and Israel served to push for a verifiable and effective agreement to control development of nuclear technology for weapons systems. Behavioural factors involved are the very young population in Iran which has no memories about the period before the revolution in 1979- 70% of the population of 74 million are people under the age of 35. This group is eager for ties to the outside and could change Iran's outlook and policies int the future towards moderation. Risks in not reaching a deal also include the possibility of the Saudis developing nuclear technology and nuclear proliferation. Winners from a deal because of the flow of Iranian oil to world markets and a period of extended low oil prices are the U.S., Europe, China and India. Germany gains new markets to replace the growth in the Russian market after sanctions. Lifting of an arms embargo, an added risk in the last days of the talks, would be mitigated by making the lifting of that embargo very gradual....

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Ms. Park Geun-hye of the conservative party was elected president of S. Korea on Dec. 19, 2012. She received 51.6% of the vote compared to 48.0% for liberal candidate Moon Jae-in with about 87% of votes counted. Issues in the election included the high amount of household debt, welfare payments, high cost of student tution, and lack of jobs for new college graduates. Both candidates favor moderate policies towards N. Korea and the communist neighbor was not a factor in the election. The focus is on uncertainties about the economy and regional disparities between the southeast and southwestern provinces.

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During the early weeks of the Libyan people's struggle the Wall Street Journal was one of the rare voices that stood up for freedom in Libya, saying the U.S. had to have the will and was not so overstretched that it could make a difference working with its allies in NATO. It took some time for the Obama administration to make up its mind by which time the Gaddafi forces would have entered Benghazi. It was the leadership of Sarkozy of France and Cameron of Britain that made the decisive difference at the right time. And as the tide turned it was the young people of Libya who could be seen in the video footage who showed bravery against the organized heavily armed forces of the Gaddafi regime. The lesson from the U.S. support for the Libyan people's movement for democratic government is that the U.S. can make a moral difference and a strategic difference when it follows the right instincts that have guided the country since its founding.

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Ben Hubbard of the NYT describes the problems created by the Russian bombing campaing in Syria for the civilian population, and the lack of any changes on the ground. Russia may soon be looking for a way out from its involvement in the region, says Hubbard, because of the costs of such an involvement over time.

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Strong criticism from Attorney General Luisa Ortega, and dissension inside the government, led to the Supreme Court retracting parts of its decision to nullify the powers of the legislature. Ortega called the move "a rupture of the constitutional order." Most of the judges are appointed on the court by the Maduro government. Strong criticism by the OAS calling it a "self inflicted coup", by other governments in Latin America, also led to retracting parts of the decision by the Supreme Court. Nicholas Maduro succeeded Mr. Chavez who was the democratically elected president of Venezuela from 1999 to 2013. Maduro narrowly won the election in 2013 by a margin of about 1.5% over Henrique Capriles. In 2015 in National Assembly elections the opposition parties won a majority in the National Assembly. Protests against the Maduro government were followed by a recall attempt in 2016 which was suppressed. Inflation and economic conditions in Venezuela worsened under Maduro with the collapse of oil prices. The devaluation of the currency, high inflation and shortages of basic goods have led to widespread protests. As the situation worsened the Supreme Court in support of the government gradually chipped away at the powers of the National Assembly since 2016, leading to the situation in April 2016 with  the effort to strip the Assembly of all powers and remove the immunity from prosecution of legislators. Maduro is a former bus driver for the city of Caracas bus system, and a trade unionist. He was part of the movement supporting Chavez release after a coup attempt, foreign minister 2006-2013, and appointed Chavez successor in 2012.  Max Fisher and Amanda Taub of the NYT go on to discuss the writings of political scientists, including Dutch expert Cas Mudde, who pointed out that populism often starts its climb because established institutions and elites have become unresponsive to pubic needs. Yet the replacement is with what starts out as an effort to bring fairness- yet ends up creating another elite, suppressing opposition, and creating a new set of problems, even threatening the institutional framework of democracy such as elected assembly as happened last week in Venezuela.  In Venezuela the Chavez populist movement was initially intended to reduce corruption in the court system, the established parties control over media, and ensure oil revenues were used to provide services to poor regions and neighborhoods.  In the process over two decades it introduced a system that set up a Bolivarist class of its own based on socialist goals, failed to integrate the economy into the global economy for modernization, and created an overdependence on oil revenues that hurt the country when prices dropped sharply. High inflation, corruption, shortages of basic goods, and an economy slipping behind neighboring countries in Latin America, are the result by 2017. Seeing the situation in Venezuela in the context of current populist trends in the U.S. and Europe may be a stretch because the situation in Venezuela is unique to Latin America in some ways and is from an earlier period. High inflation, collapsing economy, debt problems and mismanagement of the economy, devaluation of currency, are problems faced by Brazil, Argentina, and other countries in Latin America, happening under conservative as well as populist governments since the 1960's. It is different in two respects, the disconnect with the global economy that prevents modernization, and the trend towards authoritarianism, as seen in Venezuela.     ...

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Nawaf Obaid, a fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, is also senior fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies. Here he describes the events leading to the Saudi turndown of a seat on the UN Security Council. The Saudi foreign policy establishment made this decision after several weeks of debate in Jeddah considering the U.S. and Russia's effort to make only a muted criticism of the use of chemical weapons in Syria in the Security Council; and the U.S. effort to have the British, French and Saudis give up on demands for firm language in a Security Council resolution on action to be taken against the use of chemical weapons. For the Saudis, says Obaid, better not taking a temporary seat on the UN Security Council, than to be left a docile member without its own voice and the voice of others in the international community being heard. Obaid also points out that this is the beginning of Saudi effort to exercize its own influence in the Middle East, as it faces three separate developments in 2013- the Iranian rapprochement with the West under new president Rouhani, the Arab Awakening and the new consciousness in the Middle East, the U.S. policy under president Obama of not taking leadership in the Middle East. This also comes as the Saudis parted ways with the Obama administration on the role of the military in Egypt, and has differences with Turkey and Quatar on support for Islamic groups in Egypt and Syria....

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Arango takes a look back at the history of Iraq- the 400 years of Ottoman rule and the role of Gertrude Bell in defining Iraq's current borders under British rule. Saddam Hussein, Maliki and Islamic State pitted Sunnis against Shiites and Sunnis against Kurds for the last 40 years, leavig a divided country. The current effort to put Iraq together as a country with different faiths and communities under prime minister Abadi will take many years after so much bloodshed. Northern Ireland shows that it can be done after much pain and loss, when all realize putting the past behind is the only way forward.