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Dubai and UAE have a lot to do with Iran. Because this is apparently such a political hot potato and UAE wants it so much, there will be lots of quid pro this quo. Control of the Strait of Hormuz is the immediate prize and there are 3 islands in Iranian hands right there just offshore from UAE. Watch those islands. Bush would not be pushing this in the face of certain conservative oposition if there were not some other consideration. I think that consideration is strategicand relates to preparation for an assault on Iran. This war is a WORLD war and everything is in play.

Wake up people! I don't need a loyalty test, I'd just like some plain common sense. It's main street values I'm after, not those of a Houston Country Club.

Is there any real difference between turning the ports over to a company from Dubai and turning the western wilderness lands over to the multi-national timber and gas companies? Really, would we want the Russians running the US ports instead?? What if the company from Dubai were clear-cutting and strip mining our wild lands that have always been American treasures? This is what the 'left' complains about when they complain about globalization.

If I twist my tin foil hat ever so slightly I see the Chinese allowing the Waltons to keep their name on Walmart because they are smart enough to know that having a Chinese name on the store would be bad for business.

Face it, twisting arms in other countries so that they open their natural resources to our corporations means we have to open ourselves to the same beast.

Watch out, because the next time you look up a Japanese/Korean fishing fleet will be busy cleaning out our offshore fishing grounds, and the Indians will be dismantling our computer industry (and the Arabs will be running our ports). ---Oops, too late or all three counts.

And Bush won't even understand why you are concerned. Face it, he's not a conservative and this is not about profiling Arabs.

Yes a few boats will rise on a sea of global prosperity (no pun intended) as we sell the ports and the forests and main streets to foreign corporations or multi-nationals. It's just that the new owners will not have our national interests at the top of their agenda. I don't mind a Mexican company opening a chain of fried chicken restaurants or a French company making candy to sell in the grocery store. That is a different issue. I'm talking about divesting our natural resources and national jewels to people whose loyalty is not to the United States.

The Straits of Hormuz angle is just about the only concept I've heard that makes sense. Even still, at this point the politics of the situation are pretty clear, if nothing else. It will take an awful lot of convincing to get security-conscious Republicans to Bush's side. I don't know if he can, or should. (The Democrats are merely naysayers and aren't worth the trouble of thinking about or dealing with any more than necessary. If Bush had scuttled this deal, I have little doubt that the Dems would argue that Bush was "profiling" and "alienating the world" once again.) The fact that Jimmy Carter is presently the only "prominent politician" to support this is not a good sign.

Bush & Co. are smart people. They will find a way to satisfy both the UAE and the American public. They have to.

My gut reaction is that this is a very bad idea. If Gore or Kerry had proposed this I would be extremely concerned. Yes, I trust Bush a whole not more then either of them (character matters!), but I still have to be honest. I want him to be right, and to be doing the right thing. But security issues are Bush's strength and I think that whenever he is tagged as "weak" on that issue, either rightly or wrongly (Katrina, immigration, the ports) he suffers greatly, and so does our cause. Again, assuming just for the moment that the ports deal enhances, rather than weakens, our security and geopolitical position, it's a fact (like it or not) that in our system of government it's very hard to get this far out of line with the people. Certainly the last thing folks want to hear is that we need to deal with the UAE in order to strengthen our position for a probably inevitable attack on Iran. Again, it is quite possible that such an attack is the right thing to do, even though possibly unpopular. We don't want to react once we're attacked and a city is gone, and we can't advocate governing by polls.

But it's a real concern.

Rambling? Maybe. It's early. :)