Will foreign policy be a campaign issue in 2012?

It was with Neville Chamberlain; who remembers him for sound economic policies in Britain during the 1930's? Or is he remembered for selling out his ally to appease an evil dictator?

Obama Administration’s Eyes Are Closed on Completely Predictable Middle East Crises  "President Barack Obama’s determination not to give headaches to America’s enemies guarantees that he brings them onto U.S. interests. Here are examples happening right now and certain to blow up before the November 2012 elections."

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"...a time bomb is going to go off in late September or October when the Obama administration vetoes the Palestinian bid and all hell breaks loose as Muslims and Arabs proclaim that Obama is worse than his predecessor! All the president’s apologies and all the president’s courting won’t put his (alleged) popularity together again.

"Indeed, Marwan Barghouti, the Fatah leader who started the bloody 2000 intifadah, is warning that a U.S. veto would be an act of “terrorism” that would wreck Palestinian relations with the United States. All that money and diplomatic support doesn’t count. Unless you do 100 percent of what they want — very detrimental to U.S. interests–it amounts to zero percent in their eyes. And he is openly threatening anti-American terrorism." Barry Rubin

Success Against al Qaeda Depends on Success in Afghanistan  "Simply put, if the U.S. abandons the mission in Afghanistan before achieving the objectives President Obama announced at West Point, the “counter-terrorism” operations in Pakistan will also fail."

about.com/

How the GOP should attack Obama's foreign policy in 2012  "But it is not too early to begin thinking about how they should be distinguishing themselves from President Obama. Herewith a few foreign policy themes that GOP presidential candidates should consider highlighting as challenges to the Obama administration:"....

Diminished American power....

Declining American leadership....

Politics trumping policy....

Deferring problems....

Flailing on free trade....

"GOP candidates should offer agreement where agreement is merited, since as the above points show, there is plenty else to disagree with."

Russia in talks to build more nuclear plants in Iran: report

How Budget Cuts Will Limit the United States’ Global Role "The recent deal over the debt ceiling guarantees that the U.S. government will reduce its spending on foreign policy, which will force America to scale down its ambitions abroad."

The EPA- here it comes!

Getting ready for a wave of coal-plant shutdowns  "The regulations, they say, will cost utilities up to $129 billion and force them to retire one-fifth of coal capacity. Given that coal provides 45 percent of the country’s power, that means higher electric bills, more blackouts and fewer jobs. The doomsday scenario has alarmed Republicans in the House, who have been scrambling to block the measures. Environmental groups retort that the rules will bring sizeable public health benefits, and that industry groups have been exaggerating the costs of environmental regulations since they were first created."  Check out this timeline.

But how will we be able to charge up our Chevy Volts?

Tunnel Dweller's hometown of Garibaldi, Oregon before the EPA struck

The Garibaldi mill today.

Energy prices on rise.

Utilities warn of higher rates because of pollution rules  "The new rule has been in development for several years but the first phase of compliance hits utilities in 2012. WPS said it won't have time to install pollution controls by next year at its plants, but will be able to comply by purchasing credits from other utilities that have cut emissions."

Via Drudge

States Start Realizing that the Obama EPA is Threatening Their Economies (Update: Texas Hits Peak Demand)  "I’ve written quite a bit about the Obama EPA’s regulatory assault on Texas, mainly because I happen to live in Texas. The fact is, the EPA is chipping away at 26 states and their economies via the cross-state rule and the Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rule. The MACT rule alone could force enough power plant shutdowns to cost 30 to 70 gigawatts of power (one gigawatt powers about 750.000 homes). Some of the targeted states are starting to wake up to the threat: rate hikes, lost power production leading to outages, lost jobs, worse economies. Here’s a sample of reaction in states beyond the Lone Star."

Alan Caruba: Black America's Gains and Losses

Warning Signs  "As a general observation, blacks in America have chosen to ignore the gains in legally protected civil rights equality.

"By most indices the black community has not changed. In U.S. cities they remain ghettoized, as much from choice, as external circumstances. Instead of moving forward, integrating and assimilating into the larger white population; blacks have emotionally remained apart, nurturing a sense of being victims, holding onto an animus for whites."

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The Congressional Black Caucus

"When whites became aware of Obama’s preacher, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, saying “God damn America”, they had to actively ignore the fact that Obama had spent many years in his church, that Wright had married him and Michelle, and baptized their children. Theirs was no casual relationship, nor were others from any earlier point in his life such as the Communist Party member, Frank Marshall Davis, who advised young Barack that his white grandmother had a right to be scared of blacks because “She understands that black people have a reason to hate.” " 

Powerful article and a subject addressed in the sidebar to the right on this blog.