Chris Malott has a great post on the UAE's proposed takeover of running the US ports that have been managed until now by British company, Peninsular and Oriental.
More importantly for me, with George Bush's record on fighting terrorism I trust his administration to make the right call here.
But...
Politically this transaction is a loser for whoever supports it.
It is a loser. Absolutely everybody except the Bush administration and former President Jimmy Carter are against it. Carter came out Monday in favor of the deal, which immediately confirmed for those undecided folks on the Right that this is a REALLY BAD IDEA.
Knowing that President Bush values loyalty above all other qualities, especially within himself, my guess is that his recent digging in of his heels (here and here) over this issue is a matter of the loyalty he feels for the people within his administration. His people looked into the question, determined that the UAE is not a security threat at this time, and President Bush is willing to trust their assessment. And I might be willing to trust them as well, except for one thing (and it's not the Jimmy Carter factor):
Dubai Ports World , the UAE's state-run company, is an arm of another country. It's one thing to rely on a foreign private business. The risks will primarily be monetary. But with another country running our ports (whether that's Great Britain or Israel or the United Arab Emirates), we put ourselves at even greater risk whenever a national conflict of interest comes up.
We must not place the management of our ports into the hands of another sovereign nation. Period.
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