The Solution is Still Energy

I have never watched a nation’s foreign policy implode right before my eyes. America has big problems in the Mideast. Pakistan and Iran are watching the paper tiger burn up front and they will feel emboldened. Israel has to be on the verge of nervous breakdown. War will be here sooner rather than later, and it will be bad…really bad.

Once again America is learning that there is evil in the world, and it isn’t us. No matter what our faults, we are the good guys. Appeasement does not now, nor has it ever, worked. Peace is only achieved through strength.  It is much more cost effective in blood and treasure to maintain strength rather than to rebuild it. America has lost all influence in the Mideast. We have turned our back on Israel, our most important ally in the region. We have lost Egypt. Pakistan is next and the most dangerous because of its nuclear weapons. Iran is still on the path to war. Iran is telling us what it is going to do. We have to listen. War is now almost inevitable.

I’m not sure that I disagree with Obama’s policy on all counts. I understand his reasoning to disengage the United States from being policeman for the world. We can’t afford it. Most Americans probably agree we should pack up our bags and leave the Mideast to those zealots that thrive on oil and sand. No good comes from that part of the world.

On the other hand, Obama poorly planned his strategy. The Americas have the capability of being energy independent. All we have to do is go and get it. Oil, coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, nuclear, wind…we have it all. To disengage from the Mideast requires that our energy resources be fully developed. Instead we got Obama cutting us off from the Mideast while strangling carbon fuels in the United States.

And that choice was deliberate. He wants this. He wants disengagement from the Mideast; America’s wealth redistributed around the world, not just within our borders; and he wants carbon fuels terminated. That is his policy…and if we have to suffer in the meantime, so be it.

Unfortunately, reality is hitting him in the face. Our economy is in the dumper and he is facing those darn pesky elections. Rather than lay out a slow but deliberate strategy to the nation, Obama hooked his train up to the left wing bandwagon and off he went to the races. "We could have had it all" he must be singing to himself right now.

From coal in the United States to oil shale in Canada to oil in the Gulf of Mexico and off our shorelines to natural gas everywhere to wind out in the heartland to biofuels in Brazil, the Western Hemisphere has an abundance of energy riches. What we need is a sensible energy policy that shows the path to the future, explained to the public so we are all working together. And we really need a realization that although the ultimate goal is to rid the world of the carbon fuel scourge, that day is a long way off.

If the Mideast explodes like I think it will, our economy is in big trouble. It will make the last great recession look like a walk in the park. Ideologues screaming it takes five years to get oil from a well will wish they started drilling 10 years ago.

The answer to our foreign policy and our economic woes is energy, energy, energy. It is a simple solution. All we have to do is do it.