It is interesting to compare Bush’s statement on the Dubai Ports World affair that

I think it sends a terrible signal to friends around the world that it’s okay for a company from one country to manage the port, but not a country that plays by the rules and has got a good track record from another part of the world can’t manage the port.

with Chirac’s surly responses re Mittal Steel’s Arcelor bid. On the other hand, the US hasn’t been entirely free of the sort of knee-jerk reaction I would normally expect from India’s Communists: Hillary Clinton is planning to introduce legislation that bans the sale of ports to foreign governments (Dubai Ports World is an UAE-goverment enterprise, not quite the same thing) and Baltimore Mayor dramatically declares

…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.

While Patrix notes that many conservatives are up in arms about the deal, from where I stand the opposition seems to be bipartisan, clueless and reflexively believe that enterprises based in the Middle-East are somehow a terrorist risk¹ (as a wag pointed out — Madame Tussauds is owned by a Dubai holding company now; can we expect bombs embedded inside wax statuettes next?). It is especially ironic that so many Democrats — normally up in arms against racial profiling — are rushing to judge a company on the basis of its origin rather than its record.

¹A belief that Muslim/Arab companies (and possibly governments) are more vulnerable to being compromised by terrorists is a more understandable one. However given that the ownership by a Dubai firm does not change the day-to-day running of the ports (or Madame Tussauds, for that matter), I consider it unlikely that ownership alone can present a security risk.

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