Any Storm in a Port? Posted by Heather Hurlburt

The ueber-politics-watchers at ABC's The Note make a prediction today that I think is very smart:  the Dubai Ports World case will end with a whimper when the Administration persuades the company to withdraw the US portion of its bid.

This will, if it comes to pass, be both very clever of the Administration and the worst of all possible worlds:

• The US takes a huge black eye in the Arab world, and elsewhere, for our anti-Arab posturing and for our tendency to say one thing about free markets and do another;
• We lose the heat needed to do anything about real shortcomings in port security. that have much more to do with how the ports are supervised than who runs them; and
• Commercially speaking, it probably chokes off private foreign investment in our already behind-the-times ports infrastructure.

(and, if I understand this right, it would still leave the ports in the hands of foreigners... oh, never mind...)