I haven’t made up my mind on whether the Dubai deal harms U.S. national security. I’ll wait to hear what Bush officials have to say tomorrow before the Senate Armed Services Committee. But many others, who have obviously studied the pending deal with a fine toothcomb, have. Hotline reports that Ol’ Blood n’ Guts Martin O’Malley, the Democratic mayor of Baltimore and gubernatorial candidate, invoked the Stars & Strips in his call to arms. “We want to turn over the Port of Baltimore, the home of the ‘Star Spangled Banner,’ to the United Arab Emirates? Not so long as I’m mayor, and not so long as I have breath in my body.” Give me a break. I don’t remember the mayor fighting to his last “breath” efforts by many in his party to shut down the NSA program monitoring al Qaeda communications to people inside the U.S. — perhaps even Baltimore. Others, as today’s Wall Street Journal points out, are stoking the Dubai issue to bolster their protectionist cause. I doubt most of the people making categorical statements on the wisdom of the deal have a clue as to the nuts and bolts of port operations/security, the role the U.A.E. has played in the war on terror, or if there is another intelligence component to this that hasn’t been made public. The current deal may or may not be a good idea but the debate, so far, is about as phony as Washington can get. In the end, my guess is that a compromise will be struck allowing an amended deal to move foward.
