Free Republic

In May, an American investor tried to sell top German economic officials on an audacious plan to buy a Russian undersea pipeline. Despite years of international friction over the pipeline, he proposed to eventually activate it and deliver natural gas to Germany. The investor, Stephen P. Lynch, had already made the pitch to the Trump administration, which he was betting would want U.S. control over a pivotal piece of energy infrastructure. Now the Germans wanted to hear for themselves about Mr. Lynch’s proposal to lead a takeover of the much-criticized pipeline on the floor of the Baltic Sea, called Nord...

Upon learning that Syria’s dynastic dictatorship had fallen, Iman Mohammed, a Syrian refugee living in Germany, felt a surge of elation at the idea that she could return to her homeland. But that joy quickly faltered as another thought occurred to her: Going back to Syria could mean giving up everything that she and her family had built in Germany since making the dangerous trek to arrive there nearly a decade ago. “In the cold light of day, when we really looked at everything that had happened, we realized, not just yet,” Ms. Mohammed, 41, said of the idea that...