Austrians turn right in national vote

AUSTRIA: In a called election, Austrians chose 31-year-old Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz as their next prime minister. Kurz gets credit for “closing the back door” to migrants from the Middle East and elsewhere after he negotiated with Macedonian and other Balkan leaders through last year. While European Union leaders and German Chancellor Angela Merkel did little to curb the influx of migrants across the Continent, Kurz lent Austrian law enforcement and equipment from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which Austria chaired at the time, to Balkan states in an effort to block illegal entries, drastically reducing the flow.

Kurz’s People’s Party not only defeated Austria’s long-ruling Social Democrats but also the country’s far-right Freedom Party. Kurz moved his own party (more equivalent to Merkel’s Christian Democrats) to the right, particularly on the issues of migration and Muslims, but he avoided the inflammatory rhetoric of the right-wing Freedom Party and its head, Heinz-Christian Strache. That made Kurz’s party appealing to voters sensitive about immigration but uncomfortable with the small neo-Nazi fringe the Freedom Party attracts. Kurz, at 31, younger than French President Emmanuel Macron, 39, becomes the youngest head of state in the world.

What I’ve learned from recent visits to Europe (currently in Austria) is that Europeans are generous to new migrants at the local level but resent the way more than a million were allowed in without vetting, the subsequent burden they impose on public coffers in mostly socialist states, and the terror threat some Muslims potentially pose. That frustration is directed toward Merkel and the EU, making many generally sympathetic to Britain’s choice to leave the EU and cautiously optimistic its separation might bring needed reforms and recognition again of the many distinctives among EU member states.

BRITAIN: Hillary Clinton, in a lengthy interview with the BBC, seemed to do her best to undermine Brexit, taking shots at U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May and blaming the vote in favor of Brexit on “fake news,” saying the Brits’ decision to leave the EU was a “precursor to what happened in the U.S.” Clinton also said she was “shocked and appalled” by Harvey Weinstein’s behavior. She said in the United States “we have someone who admitted to being a sexual assaulter in the Oval Office.” During multiple British media appearances, Clinton dismissed sexual assault allegations against her own husband while in office. “That’s in the past,” she said, and, “that’s all been litigated.”

IRAQ: After a tense weekend, Iraqi forces appear to have attacked Kurdish peshmerga in Kirkuk, long a contested city the peshmerga defended from Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014 and have controlled since. The clash puts two U.S.-backed forces in Iraq, both heavily armed by the United States, against one another.

SOMALIA: A Saturday night truck bombing in Mogadishu killed more than 270 people and wounded at least 300.

IRAN: On Friday afternoon, the U.S. Treasury Department designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a branch of Iran’s armed forces, a terrorist group, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani reacted angrily. He promised to retaliate if the United States tried to reimpose sanctions. “Iran will not hesitate to give them a fitting response,” he said in a speech to the nation.

It appears U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley was the key voice in persuading President Donald Trump to decertify the Iran nuclear deal after becoming the administration’s most vocal public proponent of the move.

Some clarification on Trump’s move to decertify Iran:

NOTE: No Globe Trot on Wednesday, but returning Friday.

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