Happy New Year!

Let’s not kid ourselves: 2004 is going to be huge. America will still be at war with a faceless enemy that remains clever and lethal. Afghanistan is hanging onto stability by a thread, and Iraq will still be a mess (even if Baghdad’s “Green Zone” expands).

We’re preparing a substantial reorganization of troop deployments in Europe. Our old allies in Europe are refocusing their priorities away from us, and some new friends are moving closer to us — especially those with fresh memories of Soviet rule.

On top of all this, we will have a fiery and vicious presidential election with very different candidates.

The decisions we make in 2004 will not just change America for four or eight years; it will set in motion the reshaping of the entire world. We are witnessing a shift of powers, priorities, and allegiances, one that is fueled by the lack of a Soviet enemy, a bloated UN that lies in torpor, the rising wave of technologically-adept terrorist networks, and President Bush’s dismal failure to properly ’sell’ American policy abroad.

I may be a conservative, but I’m not a brown-nose. There are a lot of things George W. Bush has done wrong in his three years as President, and you can’t simply wave off his failures by pointing to his successes.

But what are the real alternatives? Are there any? The Democrats are caught like deer in headlights: frozen stiff, unable to move, and about to get creamed. Howard Dean is his party’s own worst enemy; I know he could win the nomination, but I have serious doubts he could defeat George Bush. Americans want stability and security, not radically different thinking.

The problem is that new thinking is just what we need — but not the kind Howard Dean is selling.

We need a President who will work for smaller government, reduced spending, and free trade. Bush made plenty of promises, but
he failed to deliver on them.

We need a leader who will tell this nation what it doesn’t want to hear: that gas-guzzling SUVs and irresponsible energy consumption is funding terrorism just as much as heroin traffickers and Syria. We need someone who won’t cut funding for air marshals while throwing away tens of billions of dollars on corporate welfare for the energy sector.

We need a President who will tell the Saudis to stop covering up for their religious leaders, who are fueling terrorism by preaching extremism and hate across the Middle East. We need a President who won’t pay lip service to religious fundamentalists, just because they feed us crude. Maybe we should buy more from the Russians; they’d love to have our business.

We need a President who can admit that mistakes were made in post-war planning in Iraq, and who is willing to correct those missteps. First on the agenda should be hiring back all the rank-and-file members of Saddam’s army, who could be guarding oil pipelines instead of grousing about being unemployed.

America needs a President who can come up with bold new strategies to fight terrorism and rebuild a broken economy. America needs a President who won’t vacillate in the face of protesters or appease the world by letting France and Germany dictate our priorities. America also needs a President who can develop a sensible energy policy that will wean Americans off Saudi oil reserves. America needs a President who will construct a viable alternative to the Kyoto Protocol, one that won’t cripple our economy in exchange for illusory benefits.

There are so many questions, and all are entwined with one another. How will we fight terrorism? How will we sell American policy to the Muslim world? How can we rebuild our damaged ties with Europe? What will the future role of NATO be? What are we doing about global warming? How can we speed the development of a 21st-century energy infrastructure? Where is our economy going, and what form will we allow it to take?

America must make some very difficult decisions in the near future. I worry that none of the candidates — George Bush included — are capable of guiding our country in the right direction.