The president claims that Iran has the right to develop a nuclear energy program. My question is why he and his supporters don't see the same need (and right) here in America. I agree with the IBD editorial that says, "We have legitimate energy aspirations as well, and one of them is reducing our dependence on imported oil from countries that do not have our interests at heart." Amen.

Comments

[Jason Taylor]

Of course Iran has a right to develop a nuclear energy program. What it does not have is the right to proclaim the intent to destroy it's neighbors and behave in a manner which would make the threat credable-and then expect it's neighbors not to take proper precautions.

Tom Clancy once made a similar analogy. It is legal to own a gun. It might therefore(by the unfortunate absurdities that must needs go with litteral interpretation of human law)be technically legal to pace back and forth carrying the gun in front of the house where one's neighbor's children are playing. But it is not, to say the least, very polite.

[Dan Gill]

You expect consistency from President Obama?

[Jason Taylor]

Not particularly. But then I don't really expect consistency from politicians.

[Dan Gill]

Actually, I was making a comment on the original post, not on a comment.

[vikingmother]

We fund some dangerous factions thru our insistence on NOT drilling / processing more of our own oil.

Whether it is the huge oil shale reserve or Alaskan north slope (or some offshore places) the Congress, etc. does NOT want to touch our own oil!!!

I know the Middleeast oil is only a percentage of our total. But it is not as if our country could function adequately on more than a few percentage points less than the oil we use daily.

It's as if - in say 1900 - people decided they would depend on cars to get them all over the place---and shut down the trains, horses & buggies. Trouble would be---the new car technology was not yet developed enough to replace horse & buggy & trains.

Who don't politicians let us use our OWN energy resources (nuclear power---oil) WHY???

[Jason Taylor]

If they didn't sell we would still have coal. If we didn't buy they would have camels. Some of those Arab Kingdoms are completely dependant on selling oil.

[Ben W]

Diane, vikingmother, how is Obama opposed to nuclear power? He certainly hasn't cut any spending or subsidies for nuclear, nor made it harder to get permits to build nuclear power plants. All I can see is that he's opposed to Yucca Mountain. My apologies if this is addressed in the IBD article; I can't access it.

Nuclear is a moot point anyway, as it won't help us unless we can develop battery technology for cars. And Obama has dramatically increased the research funding for batteries and energy research, so I have to think that the people who say that Obama is opposed to nuclear are smoking something.

[vikingmother]

"Diane, vikingmother, how is Obama opposed to nuclear power?"

Maybe he is not so much against nuclear power so much as making it reasonable (easing regulations---allowing for US oil drilling) so we can build more US refineries & drill our own oil) . Perhaps I am reacting to the outcry that goes up at the mention of using more nuclear power in the US.

I pass loads of windmills in Indiana. But we still have increasingly obscene gas prices. Need I mention how damaging it was and IS to transfer so much wealth to some of the oil producing countries which SO despise us???

We are not ready to be fully weaned off oil---yet.

Oil prices dropped like a ROCK last Sept. when Ms. Palin mentioned the Alaskan Slope. (Of course, I think some oil interests did not want her to get elected---a separate item.)

We can't wait till the alternate energies are both cost effective and large enough to NOT use our own oil resources!!!

We should be allowed to WEAN the US off its partial but still CRITICAL overseas oil dependence! And we should be able to build refineries and DRILL without so many regulations that we end up buying some oil from persons who may well have NO regulations on how they drill!

[Ben W]

A quick reply (and apologies to Rolley et al who I haven't replied to, as my internet is spotty where I am): Electricity is great, but it does absolutely nothing to substitute for oil. So issues about wind, coal, or nuclear usually have more to do with global warming than they do about the oil crisis.

Alaska slope and Palin - I can't see how this matters, since it would be 10 years until any oil flowed from ANWR and oil prices run up and down much more quickly. This is probably more strongly related to speculation on oil futures and demand from China for the Olympics than any comments Gov'r Palin made.

I agree that we need to wean ourselves off of oil, but we'll never do that by pumping *more* oil here (which we don't have enough of anyway). Instead we'll do it by finding cheap alternatives for oil.