[bikepacker67]

So Georgies FIRST VETO is going to be THIS???

WTH is WRONG with him?

[surely_you_jest]

Well, I'll say this for the Bush family - when they're bought they stay bought.

Dubya's relationship with the Arabs (and the Mexicans for that matter) is a national embarassment.

[antiRepublicrat]

Bush? Veto? Don't make me laugh.

[oldbill]

What's the big deal about turning our ports over to the Abu Dubies? We've already turned over the rest of the country to the illegal aliens.

[faithincowboys]

Wow, he is really losing me with this. Sitting out 2006 looks more and more likely.

[hedgetrimmer]

WTH is WRONG with him?

He's a "free trader" and a communitarian.

[pgkdan]

Criminy!!! Sometimes it's hard to be a Bush supporter. He signs Campaign Finance Reform and threatens to veto THIS! Sometimes I wonder...Bush really has a huge blind spot when it comes to islam. I've argued with others who claim that Bush is making excuses for the Saudis because they're family friends...now I wonder.

[NYorkerInHouston]

After reading a couple of the threads and thinking about things a bit I would propose as an educated guess the following:

1) The US is considering plans to invade or bomb Iran if negotiations fail.

2) If that were to occur the second worse thing that could occur (the first being Iranian use of a nuclear device) would be if the Iranians could successfully prevent oil tankers from going through the Straits of Hormuz. The removal of 13 million barrels of day from the world markets would be quite a shock to the world economies.

As can be seen from this graphic, UAE along with part of Oman is on one side of the Straits if Hormuz. Iran is on the other.

My guess is that we would benefit by having access to fields on UAE and likely Oman as well to support our ships trying to keep the strait safe for oil tankers in the event of conflict, perhaps for additional landing fields for planes and/or for antimissile batteries.

Though I don't think a deal was ever present (port control for bases) if the port deal doesn't go through the UAE government may be unwilling to allow the US to make use of UAE soil in the event of conflict with Iran. Certainly UAE would be making itself a potential target. Perhaps the potential for refusal has been privately communicated to the Bush administration by the UAE government.