Merkel may be struggling, but don’t count her out

"Merkel has proved herself time and time again to be smart, adaptable and resilient"

Is Angel A Merkel in trouble? she hopes to win a fourth term as Germany’s Chancellor this fall, but recent polls show her trailing Martin Schulz, candidate for the center-left Social Democratic Party. The news made headlines across Europe because Merkel has been the one European leader in recent years who projected cool headed, mainly popular leadership through the Continent’s various crises.Yet she’s on the back foot for now. That’s hardly surprising given everything that’s gone wrong for her since TIME named her Person of the Year in 2015. 

Then, Merkel’s politically courageous decision to admit more than 1 million migrants, many of them from the Middle East, into Germany over the course of two years won her plaudits across the globe. In Germany, however, the policy has been bitterly divisive—and as violent crimes have been blamed on refugees and terrorist attacks have struck Berlin and elsewhere, the criticism has intensified. Many Germans are now angry that their taxes will pay for the resettlement of refugees.On the world stage too, Merkel looks increasingly isolated. 

Britons have voted to abandon the E.U. ship she has stewarded through turbulent waters, and French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen wants the same for her people. In the U.S., Barack Obama has given way to Donald Trump. Other European leaders have gone soft on her determination to call Russian President Vladimir Putin to account for bullying and lies.But don’t bet against Angela Merkel. 

She remains popular, with one recent poll giving her a 74% approval rate—in part because Germans consider her a credible foil to the turmoil on all sides. She’s proved herself time and time again to be smart, adaptable and resilient. Her greatest advantage though may be Germany’sdesire for stability.

Her key rival is no insurgent fire brandin the Trump–Le Pen mold. Schulzis a former president of the European Parliament who backs European integration, defends refugees, criticizes Trump and vilifies Putin. The main populist alternative, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, is polling at just 12%.Germans don’t share the hunger for change we see in other countries. A Feb. 6 poll by Ipsos Global Advisor reports that while 80% of respondents in France and50% in Britain want “a leader that will change the rules of the game,” just 21%of Germans said the same. 

In addition,while 70% in France and 67% in Britainsay their country needs a strong leader to restore order, just 34% of Germans said the same.Perhaps that’s because Germany already has a strong leader.

The U.S. and Iran’s new relationship status: enemies, with benefits

For nearly Four decades, Iran has been a reliable villain in U.S. foreign policy, black hat firmly in place even as President Obama made engaging the mullahs over their nuclear program the centerpiece of his diplomatic legacy. So when Tehran test-fired a ballistic missile on Jan. 29 in defiance of a U.N. resolution, the newly minted Trump Administration knew what to do. National Security chief Michael Flynn informed Iran it was “on notice.” The Treasury Department followed with a fresh round of sanctions. Iran ratcheted up its military drills, and what do you know? It was just like old times.

President Trump’s Manichaean, us-against-them view of the world fits snug as a Lego with the opposing perspective of Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, who welcomed the new U.S. President with a clawed swipe. “We thank him, because he made it easier for us to reveal the real face of the United States,” Khamenei said on Feb. 7. Trump came back tartly on Twitter (calling Iran “#1 in terror”), a medium where the Supreme Leader has been at home for years; his feed goes out in five languages. The English-language version chirped, “#Trump says be scared of me!” Away from the Twitter-sphere, however, Iran removed a missile from a launchpad the same day.

And yet the most crucial impact the Trump Administration has had on the Islamic Republic so far may be that felt by ordinary Iranians like Zeinab, a60-year-old mother in Tehran. Trump’s Jan. 27 Executive Order barred her from obtaining the visa she needed to visit her son in Virginia, where he is pursing a Ph.D. “I was so, so happy, and now I am so, so sad,” she told TIME. “Everyone always said America was the beacon of freedom, but after this I’m not so sure.” Iranians were dismayed to find their country among the seven whose citizens were barred from entering the States. Polls indicate that most Iranians like Americans. As many as a million Iranians call the U.S. home, having moved either to escape the regime or to earn a better living. More than 12,000 are currently in the U.S. on student visas and now find themselves in limbo.

The reality of Iran, in other words, is not black and white. Its missile program—widely viewed by outsiders as a possible delivery system for a nuclear weapon—is popular with ordinary Iranians, who remember having no reply to Saddam Hussein’s missile barrages in the 1980s war with Iraq. Yet that same population is far more liberal than its rulers. This matters, because popular sentiments will inevitably affect the complexion of the government in place nine years hence, when, under the nuclear deal, Iran can begin edging back toward uranium enrichment. And the sense on the streets of Tehran is that Trump’s visa ban drained the reservoir of goodwill accumulated by Obama. The ban also impaired the May re- election prospects of President Hassan Rouhani, who championed engagement with the West.

Nowhere are the complexities of the U.S.-Iran relationship more apparent than in Syria. Trump speaks of coaxing Russia away from its alliance with Iran in that country, where both back the brutal regime of President Bashar Assad. Moscow and Tehran are not normally pals, but their interests overlap in Syria: Russia will literally kill to keep its only Mediterranean naval base there, while for years Assad was Iran’s one and only ally, indispensable for supplying the Hizballah militia Iran created to battle Israel in neighboring Lebanon. So they work in tandem, if not as equals. 

Russia controls the skies above Syria, while Iran runs the troops on the ground, controlling huge paramilitary and militia forces, and much of the Syrian army, says Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. “Iran is always going to be the party that’s in the better position,” he says.Strange things happen when you venture outside your comfort zone and the real world awaits. Trump says his chief concern in the region is defeating ISIS—but Iran is in the thick of that fight too. In Syria, Iran-backed militias are helping pave the way for an assault on the ISIS capital of Raqqa. And in Iraq, Tehran arms and steers large Shiʻite militias engaging the Sunni extremists. That puts Iran and the U.S. on the same side—a disquieting place to find your most reliable enemy.

Trump’s hard line on Mexico gives left-wing populist an opening

" Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promised to hike spending, tackle graft— and stick it to Donald Trump"

President Trump will honor his pledge to build a border wall, and he has answered Mexico’s refusal to pay for it with threats of a 20% tax on Mexican imports. He says he’ll renegotiate NAFTA, and Mexicans fear he’ll try to limit investment in their country’s manufacturing and automotive sectors to revive those industries in the U.S. So how will Mexico respond? It could answer Trump by electing a populist firebrand of its own—a President of the left who vows to punch back.

Mexico’s current President, Enrique Peña Nieto, had plenty of problems long before Trump entered the White House.Corruption scandals and his failure to put an end to Mexico’s bloody drug wars have driven his poll numbers down in recent years. His approval stood at 12% as 2017 began, according to a survey published by the newspaper Reforma, amid inflation, currency volatility and a stagnant economy. 

Public rage reached a boiling point in January when dwindling state revenues forced Peña Nieto to slash government fuel subsidies, abruptly hiking gasoline prices on consumers by up to 20%. Protests and looting followed.Peña Nieto’s legacy will likely be marked, however, by his inability to defend his country’s dignity from Trump’s threats. Already term-limited, he is now well on his way to political irrelevance. Yet Trump’s aggressive push will have a discrediting effect on Mexico’s entire political class, creating a golden opportunity for a populist presidential candidate in the 2018 presidential election.

Enter Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a veteran leftist who has promised to hike public spending, tackle corruption and—crucially— stick it to Donald Trump. “Enough of being passive,”he said recently. “We should put a national emergency plan in place to face the damage and reverse the protectionist policiesof Donald Trump.” López Obrador has run unsuccessfully for the presidency before, in 2006 and 2012, with the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution. 

But under the banner of his new, left-wing Morena party he is polling ahead of his 2018 rivals. A President López Obrador wouldn’t make Mexico the next Venezuela and would be unlikely, despite his promises, to reverse Peña Nieto’s much-needed energy-sector reform. But he would bring consistent opposition to Trump and foster a more general anti-U.S. sentiment.

If you don’t know what the former Mexico City mayor looks like, you will soon. To dramatize his scorn for Trump, López Obrador will tour major U.S. cities with large populations of citizens of Mexican origin in February. Trump might start to wish he had made a quicker start on that wall.

Trump’s Supreme Court pick puts Democrats in a bind

Prepared to name his Supreme Court pick on Jan. 31, the President scheduled a prime-time announcement and invited Washington luminaries to the East Room of the White House. When he nally introduced Judge Neil Gorsuch as his choice, Trump took a moment to bask in the dramatic reveal. “So was that a surprise?” he asked the audience. “Was it?”

In some ways it was. Given the chance to shape the court for a generation, Trump handled the decision with uncharacteristic discipline. He stuck to a pool of prospects that he submitted last year to mollify conservatives. The White House sprang few leaks during the selection process, then telegraphed journalists with sterling credentials. In the end, a President who campaigned as a populist outsider picked an Ivy League–educated judge from the conservative establishment. Gorsuch, 49, has served on the federal appeals court in Denver for a decade. 

Appointed to the bench by George W. Bush in 2006, he sailed through the Senate on a simple voice vote. In talking points distributed to Republican Senators and surrogates, the White House called him a “mainstream” choice. This puts Senate Democrats in a difficult spot. In the past, a judge with Gorsuch’s résumé would have met little resistance. But the intense liberal opposition to Trump has ratcheted upthe pressure on Democrats to block the nomination. Within an hour of the announcement, activists protested the pick on the steps of the Supreme Court. 

Demonstrators also massed that night outside the Brooklyn home of Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer. Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress are still steaming over the GOP’s refusal to hold hearings for President Obama’s Supreme Court pick in 2016. “The ghost of Merrick Garland,” said Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, “still oats around this place.”

Trump wants to stonewall a qualified nominee who won’t change the balance of the court. Ten Democratic Senators are up for re-election in 2018 in states that Trump won. Some of them, like Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jon Tester of Montana, have said Gorsuch should receive a vote. “We have to approach this thing in a rational, sensible, constitutional fashion,” says Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate.

Trump was determined to defame critics. While he was careful to choose a judge who would satisfy conservative supporters, he was also keen to someone difficult for the left to oppose. Trump interviewed the four journalists in person in January, says Leonard Leo, a conservative legal scholar who advised the President on the selection. “He just came in one morning,” Leo recalls, “and said to somebody, ‘Hey, I think I’ve made my decision.’”Legal experts say Gorsuch is a natural replacement for the Justice who preceded him. 

Like the late Antonin Scalia, Gorsuch is a textual, who interprets statutes as written, with minimal regard for legislative history. And he is an originalist, a judge who tries to interpret the Constitution according to the views of its framers. He’s also renowned for writing clear and lively opinions. Although he was raised in Denver, Gorsuch has roots in Washington: his mother served in Ronald Reagan’s Cabinet, and he clerked on the Supreme Court for Justice Anthony Kennedy more than 20 years ago. 

He wrote a 2006 book arguing against euthanasia and assisted suicide, using language that suggested antiabortion views. He also has opinions on deference to the Executive Branch that break with Scalia. Gorsuch is skeptical about the Chevron doctrine, an obscure but important principle that requires courts to defer to federal agencies in some circumstances. Progressives fear Gorsuch’s position “would result in preventing the federal government from enforcing countless acts of Congress,” says Nan Aron, president of the liberal advocacy group Alliance for Justice. 

“You cannot get any more extreme than that.”Liberal groups that despise Trump and remain furious about how the GOP treated Garland have been gearing up to oppose Gorsuch. Democracy for America called for “total opposition” to the nominee. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee raised $50,000 for Oregon Senator Je Merkley, the rst Senator to promise to libuster whomever Trump chose. 

France’s battle royale

The French presidential elections are sizing up to be an unpredictable but consequential battle in which a far-right populist win could herald the collapse of the E.U. The four main candidates are now finalized ahead of a first round of voting on April 23, followed by a May 7 runoff. Here’s who’s in the running.

FRANÇOIS  FILLONT

He center-right candidate for Les Républicains is a free-market evangelist who wants Russian sanctions lifted and takes a hard-line stance on immigration and Islamic terrorism. He was leading inpolls until becoming engulfed in a scandal over claims he paid public funds to his wife. He denies the allegations, but the party is said to be eyeing replacements.

MARINE LE PEN

The far right National Front leader is staunchly anti-immigration, vowing to cut admissions by 95%. She promises to dismantle France’s relationship with the E.U. and seek closer ties with Russia, and sees her selfand U.S. President Donald Trump as part of a global anti establishment movement. A Feb. 1 poll by Elabehas her leading the first round. 

BENOÎT  HAMON

The socalled Gallic Bernie Sanders won the Socialist Party primary on Jan. 29 on an anti capitalist, anti globalist platform. The radical left-winger wants to introduce a universal basic income and a tax on industrial robots, and reduce the workweek to 32 hours. But he might pay the price of the deeply unpopular rule of out going Socialist President François Hollande.

EMMANUEL MACRON

The pro-E.U.politician was once Hollande’s protégé and is running as an independent under his own organization, En Marche! (On the Move!). Hamon’s candidacy, which has divided Socialists, has allowed Macron to stake out the center ground, and the Elabe poll predicts he will beat Le Pen in the runoff. But he has yet to set out detailed policies.