An Unseemly Energy Deal Between Germany, Russia

Germany’s citizens and leaders have earned the world’s respect over the decades since World War II by repeatedly taking the moral and political high ground. From Willy Brandt’s imaginative Ostpolitik approach to relations with the Eastern bloc to the peaceful and effective reunification of their divided country in 1990, and on to Angela Merkel’s principled welcome of Syrian refugees in 2015, Germans have set standards that the rest of us have to admire. So why in the world are they risking that hard-earned reputation for the sake of a seemingly corrupt gas pipeline deal with Russia’s Vladimir Putin — especially since the vast changes in the global energy markets of the past year have made the Russian deal obsolete, as well as damaging to European unity? And why is the Obama administration doing so little to discourage Chancellor Merkel from going along with Putin’s pipeline skulduggery?