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This one may well bite the Republicans badly, and anything that increases the chances that the Democrats will regain Congress is immediately good for our National Security on the face of it, given how badly this Administration and its allies in Congress have mismanaged it. That is indeed the bright side of this. But there is a dark side also.
There has been a lot of Dubai trash talk in the media this week. A lot of legitimate dirty laundry belonging to the U.A.E., not just Bush, is getting aired, and while that might help stop this ill begotten deal, it can have significant and long term negative security repercussions for America. The waves of anger provoking incidents and humiliations that have been hitting the Arab world the last two years just keep getting larger and more frequent, and like a bad sun burn, once you're already burnt it takes little heat to inflame further.
After 911 there were four main Islamic nations that the United States needed to enlist greater cooperation from in order to effectively combat Al Quada. Iraq wasn't one of them, but the U.A.E was, along with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran. The results in Saudi Arabia were mixed at best, and until Al Quada bombs started going off in Riyadh, they were actually rather poor. The initial reaction from Iran, under then moderate President Mohammad Khatami, was surprisingly sympathetic to America, and some intelligence cooperation initially followed. But that hopeful beginning didn't outlast Bush Administration deep seated suspicions about Iran, and relations subsequently devolved into the dangerous state that we find them in now. In Pakistan, President Musharraf made a fateful gamble to back our efforts and began attempts to reign in extremist Islam in his own nation while cooperating with ours against Al Quada. That was a major victory for American foreign policy, but it is a fragile one. No one now would ever call Musharraf's government stable.
That brings us to the U.A.E. All things considered, and there are many things to consider, after 911 it turned further toward the West. By most reputable reports, U.A.E. security cooperation with the United States against Al Quada has significantly improved since 911, and they also stepped up and provided the United States with critical and secure military facilities to base many of our Middle East efforts out of, including the ill conceived, completely unjustified, and criminally mismanaged invasion of Iraq. The overwhelming regional unpopularity of George Bush's war in Iraq underscores just how unique active U.A.E. cooperation with America actually is. The U.A.E. is strategically located. No other nation in the region that possesses the will to cooperate with the United States can replicate what the U.A.E. can offer the United States politically or logistically.
Much of the coverage of the U.A.E. that is now consuming our media, talk shows and web sites concerns conditions that existed inside the U.A.E prior to or shortly after 911, and from an American perspective what that paints is a very mixed picture with warning lights flashing. But much has improved inside the U.A.E. since then, security cooperation with the U.S. is a work in progress, and it didn't improve to this degree without the involvement of specific, no doubt influential people. Obviously some heavy hitters inside Dubai decided to throw at least part of their lot in with America. One can say their motives were purely financial, and I'm not here to argue against that. Neither am I here to argue that the ports deal with Dubai should go forward. To the contrary, I think it shouldn't. But it never should have gotten to this point, and the fact that it did will hurt us.
Killing it now comes at a cost America never would have needed to pay if the deal had been quietly nixed earlier in the process, if a green light hadn't been given that now needs to be pulled back with the whole world watching, if a public out roar had never kicked off a spasm of continuing negative attention focused on Dubai. If we step out of the world of domestic politics, there is no way for any of us in America to really come out winners here, not unless a large positive issue emerges from this that can out weigh the very real dangerous fall out from this one. The negative is our relations with both Dubai and the larger Islamic world, and how every individual piece of the puzzle that Bush's Administration fills in leads closer to a deep and dangerous basic rupture between civilizations. The current humiliation of Dubai and the perceived humiliation of Arabs in general over this controversy is only the latest piece, but the pattern is relentless.
Iraq now is plunging into civil war. Bush already aided and abetted hardening negative attitudes and realities toward the U.S. inside Iran, which now moves increasingly closer to either gaining nuclear weapons or being attacked by the United States or Israel to stop them from gaining nuclear weapons. We may be able to count on Musharraf in Pakistan to continue cooperating with us, but forces Bush already set in motion could at any moment sweep him away leaving chaos in Pakistan, and likely extremists instantly armed with nuclear weapons. A chilling of relations with Dubai would fit right into this deteriorating picture.
So what good could possibly come from the controversy surrounding the Dubai port controversy, aside from contributing to a political realignment in the U.S., even if the sale can be rolled back ? Ousting the Republicans may be hard to improve on, but if this debacle becomes the starting point for a long and searching American debate about the potential dark side of outsourcing, about our vanishing manufacturing base and shrinking technological advantages, about our utter reliance of foreign nations and international corporations for our most fundamental economic and physical security, then something profoundly good may yet come from this blunder.
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