Afghanistan

While none of us can predict the future and unexpected events are bound to develop, the following stories will be significant in their impact on American freedom, strength and security during 2010. Please continue reading this blog during 2010 if any of these topics are of interest to you.

1. Iran: Nuclear Weapons, Resistance to the Regime and Revolution?

Iran will be a pivotal place in the struggle between Jihadism and free societies. During 2010, Iran will likely become a nuclear power led by a president with the declared goal of destroying Israel. The Obama administration is unlikely to use force to stop this dangerous development. Israel may act, but it is not clear whether it will be able to neutralize the threat of a nuclear Iran by itself.

Since the fraudulent presidential election last June, the internal, democratic Iranian resistance has grown despite the regime’s brutal attempt to silence protests through intimidation, jailing of dissidents and outright murder. The opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mosavi, a member of the regime during the 1980s has become a more vocal opponent of the regime after the election and could become Iran’s equivalent to Russia’s Boris Yeltsin who started as a communist and ended up leading the breakup of the Soviet Union and its replacement with 15 nations including a Russia that attempted to achieve democracy.

The resistance movement has stepped up protests in the last weeks of December after the death Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, once the designated successor to Khomeini, the founder of the Iranian Islamic Republic and, more recently, the leading religious leader opposing the regime. Earlier this week, the Iranian dictators killed a nephew of Mousavi, further escalating tension.

Revolutions are hard to predict, but there is at least the possibility that the Iranian resistance could overthrow the 30-year-old repressive regime before fanatics who believe in provoking an apocalypse to hasten the arrival of the “hidden Iman” gain nuclear weapons.

2. Economic Recovery: Long-Term Prospects, Fear of Inflation and the Impact of Unsustainable Government Debt

The US economy appears to be headed toward a recovery despite unprecedented, heavy-handed control exerted by the Obama administration over more and more areas of economic activity.

Can the recovery be sustained despite new and continued threats of more government control and record taxation and spending? Will inflation become a serious issue given the lose money policies of the Federal Reserve under Time’s Person of the Year Ben Bernanke?

Will the private economy again be able to generate jobs for the tens of millions of Americans that lost their jobs during the recession?

The short-term news may be positive, but dark clouds hang over this recovery.

3. Security and Terrorism: Will Washington Get Serious Again Before It Is Too Late?

The Jihadist terrorist attacks at Ft. Hood and on a plane landing in Detroit on Christmas Day have shown how utterly clueless Obama and his advisors are. They treat these acts as isolated criminal incidents despite clear evidence that they are part of a continued international Jihadist movement.

Will they see the light and let us move on from recognizing the obvious to seriously thinking about how a free society can survive given that technology today can give a handful of fanatics unprecedented power to cause mass murder and wholesale destruction?

In addition to “traditional” attacks using guns and explosives, chemical, biological and nuclear threats remain real and become more likely each year. Even more frightening scenarios that could be perpetrated by rogue regimes with a few nuclear weapons include an electromagnetic pulse attack on the US.

4. Continued Growth in Opposition to Obamaism and the November 2010 Election

The Tea Party movement started early in 2009 in opposition to unprecedented spending in Washington and all the initiatives to control more of the American economy. The likely passage of Obamacare practically guarantees, that Democrats will sustain heavy losses in the November 2010 Congressional elections.

Will Republican leaders become more effective in explaining these issues and presenting the alternatives or will the Tea Party movement end up supporting third party candidates that will inevitably divide the opposition to Obama?

5. The Final Shape of Obamacare and Its Impact on Cost of and Access to Health Care

While it is hard to see how passage of some form of Obamacare can be avoided, Democrats are sharply divided on issues like the public option and taxpayer funding of abortions. The left wing of the party opposes current legislation that has provisions required to keep the support of more “moderate” Democrats. Will this coalition between Democratic factions hold and how bad will the final legislation be?

6. The Global War on Terror: Iraq, Afghanistan and New Fronts

The US involvement in Iraq is winding down. Will the Iraqi government be able to avoid a return to the violence of a couple of years ago?

In Afghanistan, Obama is supporting a moderate surge in US forces. Will this be enough to drive back the Taliban and al-Qaeda or will they just hunker down until the withdrawal of US forces starting in 2011 that Obama has already announced?

Finally, the Christmas Day underwear bomber has started drawing attention to the fact that there are other centers of Jihadist terrorism like Yemen. Will there be an attack originating in Yemen or another center of Islamic fanatics that will force the administration to act?

7. Global Warming Alarmism After Climategate and Copenhagen

The changes for drastic imposition of new regulations controlling carbon-based energy has fizzled after the Climategate scandal and the failed Copenhagen summit.

France’s supreme court struck down a new law on carbon emission just this week.

The chances of major cap and tax legislation passing the Senate are practically nil.

Despite these positive developments, the left has invested heavily in the global warming hysteria as a new way to impose national and international controls on human freedom. Stories about impending doom due to supposedly man-made global warming won’t go away in 2010. Expect more fear-based emotional appeals and other attempts to revive the global warming movement.

Just based on what we know about these stories, 2010 is bound to be an interesting year.

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