RealCurrents

Since my first post Monday, more has come out about the Dubai Ports World deal to take over operations of six major eastern U.S. ports, plus some additional Texas terminals, apparently, at Beaumont, Corpus Christi, and the Port of Houston.

The UAE has been wise to back off and wait, rather than press to complete the deal immediately. As more facts emerge, it’s starting to look like the sale might not be as bad as it looked at first, but the U.S. is going to have to work through a whole bunch of thorny political issues. It’s amazing how many hot-button issues have managed to be bundled together in this DP World deal.

The most compelling argument in favor of the deal is that the key area for U.S. port security is actually in the overseas ports, rather than stateside. In other words, cooperation with port operations companies and foreign governments on the loading end is critical. The reality is that most ports are near major metropolitan areas, and inspection upon unloading might be too late to catch certain weapons of mass destruction, such as a nuclear device.

The U.S. has cooperative programs such as the Container Security Initiative that are designed to push the threat away from our shores. Nevertheless, it seems pointless to argue that allowing other countries to operate our ports will incur no security risk. Ownership brings access, and a lot of Americans were justifiably shocked to find out operations had already been outsourced to the extent they have.

Obviously, the outrage this sale has generated shows Americans are paying quite a bit of attention to homeland security issues and that the Bush administration’s attempt, once again, to say “simply trust us” isn’t going to work with such a sensitive domestic area.

If cooperation with foreign port operators and governments - so that manifests can be tracked and containers inspected far from our shores - is really key to port security, then the deal may represent an acceptable trade-off. Nevertheless, despite getting pretty much a free pass (and blank check) on Iraq for three years, President Bush is going to have to really make the case for how this will help security. Selling it on the basis of helping the global economy, as Michael Chertoff was reportedly doing this week, isn’t going to cut it.

In all, this is an amazingly complex political situation. Here are some additional factors deserving consideration:

• It’s still not clear exactly what DP World is “buying” in this transaction; obviously the operations of U.S. ports are not at all well understood by the public. Certainly Congress needs to take a new look at the port laws that are on the books and make sure roles and authorities are clearly and perhaps uniformly defined.
• Jimmy Carter’s quick support of the deal was puzzling. It would be easy to simply say the port deal is analogous to Carter’s giving back the Panama Canal, but consideration of Carter’s mindset about foreign affairs may shed some light on the politics. His assertion midway through his term that foreign policy was complex and beyond the understanding of the average American was what really sunk his presidency, and the current administration seems to have slipped into a similar error.

  Americans instinctively grasp there’s a balance to be struck in our political system between the ideals of republic and democracy. We leave most details to elected officials (republican/representative rule) but still must know enough to judge the performance of these officials (democratic elections). When officials start wanting to leave Americans out of the loop entirely, arguing that the issues are just too complex, the people know better, and there can be a swift political backlash as happened with Carter and again this week.

  Because Americans also understand the need for strong military leadership, there is more latitude given in this area to the President, but sometimes politicians presume too much from this. An example was the 1946 congressional election, when many were voted out because the country was fed up with wartime price controls that the government “experts” insisted must continue.

• The accusation that Americans are being xenophopic or even racist is way out of bounds. As long as Muslims insist on regularly blowing each other (and others) up, they’re going to have a real tough time persuading Americans they’re trustworthy. It’s hard to trust someone who seems to enjoy violence. The U.S. has fought a lot of foreign wars in the past century, but there’s always a lot of political pressure to end them and come home. We’ve got better stuff to do.

  Concerning the UAE, specifically, I’m not sure banking links to terrorists mean much, and Bush’s claim of strong military and intelligence cooperation gives support to the deal. On the other hand, to argue that everyone in the UAE supports the U.S., and so can be trusted, seems quite simplistic. According to AP’s Robert Burns, “the relationship is so politically sensitive in the UAE that the Pentagon does not openly discuss details.” It also has been reported that in 2004, the most recent year’s data available, the UAE sided with the U.S. in United Nations votes only 5 times, and opposed the U.S. 67 times.

• The media deserves some of the blame here for its monolithic coverage of the Middle East. This is very frustrating but unlikely to change, so if Muslim countries want to foster understanding in the U.S. and appreciation for Muslim culture, they will probably need to do the job themselves. The fascinating magazine Saudi Aramco World is a bright spot here, providing a glimpse of these cultures that is virtually unobtainable in the U.S.
• As I noted last time, the administration has gotten worse and worse at communicating its message, at a time when clear communication and articulation of strategy is needed more than ever. Obviously, changes in the White House staff are long overdue.

  Beyond that, the President needs to work a lot harder at sharing his vision of democratization of the Middle East, and be more forthcoming about what strategy, if any, he is following to get there. As I noted before, it is long past time for a real debate about our aims in the Middle East to take place in this country. It may be possible for Muslims to gain a glimpse of Western life and leave behind strife and unrest, but I suspect most, at first encounter with our culture, don’t understand its fundamentals any better than we understand theirs.

• Obviously, the failure by the Bush administration to recognize the volatile mix of terror, frustration over Iraq, outsourcing, unions, the $726 billion trade deficit, disgust with Mideast violence, and out-of-control borders, along with the casual approach it took to the deal were major political miscalculations. Bush quickly found Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, from the landlocked state of Tennessee, opposing him on the port deal.

  Republicans now find themselves in the odd position of needing to avoid appearing outflanked by Democrats on the security issue, and the lax approach taken by the Treasury Dept. in approving deals may well have to go. Most of all, as I emphasized last time, Bush needs to avoid the tendency, or at least appearance, of only half-heartedly fighting a war that is still much too poorly defined.

Over the weekend, I was disturbed by a report from AgapePress that the Bush administration had somehow, incredibly, approved a deal allowing the UAE company Dubai Ports World to acquire six eastern U.S. ports (New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore, and New Orleans).

My main concern was that this was going to be another one of those outrageous stories that only the conservative press picks up, but this time I needn’t have worried. Despite the federal holiday Monday, Republicans and Democrats alike were quick to condemn the deal. Thankfully, I don’t need to check that “Press Coverage Holes” category this time.

Nevertheless, as RealCurrents is all about trying to highlight what isn’t already being said somewhere else, but that needs to be part of the discussion, there are several points deserving consideration:

First and most mystifying to me (and I’m a conservative Republican, by the way), this ports deal is just one more instance of the Bush administration refusing to demand, or even suggest, some sort of wartime economic/business sacrifice. First it was the insistence that Americans go on spending like crazy in the wake of 9/11, buying more and more gas-guzzling SUVs even as we went to war in Afghanistan, and as the neo-cons in Washington maneuvered to start another war in Iraq.

The inability of the administration to formulate an effective energy conservation strategy to go along with a protracted war in the Middle East is not merely irresponsible, it is strategically stupid. While the U.S. borrows hundreds of billions of dollars to fight the war, Americans are borrowing hundreds of billions more to pay to oil-producing countries that in many cases have been documented sources of terrorists. This is worse than what we did in the Cold War, spending huge amounts on defense procurement while propping up the economies of the Eastern Bloc.

If things get bad enough, will Washington demand a draft, with a lot of hoop-la about how wartime sacrifices must be made? Though relatively small by historical comparison, the casualties already being suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan are substantial and seemingly ongoing.

The administration likes to pull out the “we’re at war” card every time it’s convenient (e.g. reauthorizing the Patriot Act), yet quickly tuck it away when other interests come into play. I think most Americans would agree that if we’re really at war, then there are going to be some strategic assets that are not to be dealt away.

This is the patently obvious second point: most every homeland security study has shown that our ports are some of our most vulnerable infrastructure. That the administration could even consider turning these over to a Mid-East country shows exactly why this must not be allowed, even if the country is our “ally” (whatever that means with Muslim countries) and, oh by the way, extravagantly wealthy.

Whoever analyzed this deal is confident that safeguards will be in place. This is the problem with any bureaucratic organization - it begins to think it’s infallible, and before long will let anything get by it as long as it’s got all the right rubber stamps on it. In other words, bureaucracies excel at straining out gnats but sometimes miss the glaringly obvious. The FBI’s failure, despite repeated requests, to investigate a suspicious student who only wanted to learn to fly 747s, straight and level, is not only now a classic in the annals of bureaucracy, but also a painful warning of what can happen if we place too much confidence in government.

Of course, the Katrina disaster in New Orleans has provided fresh evidence that bureacracies at all levels can fail to handle the obvious, even when it was expected ahead of time. The simple solution is simply not to let this deal happen in the first place, even if global trade suffers a little bit.

Third, as Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham noted, the adminstration’s stance is “unbelievably tone deaf politically at this point in our history”. As such, it provides ample evidence (as if any more was needed) that the White House is just not being well-managed. Either the administration doesn’t have a coherent message in many cases, and/or it’s failing dismally to communicate that message. Even as I write this, Don Wildmon of the conservative AFA has sent out an email alert opposing the deal, noting that “Normally we don’t ask you to participate in issues such as this, but we feel that this one justifies your involvement.”

I used to be impressed with George W. Bush’s ability to be in touch with public sentiment, but there’s a clear disconnect that seems to have worsened ever since the neo-cons gained ascendancy. Bush clearly needs help, and he should start by restoring Karen Hughes to a top White House role. Then he should demand that the neo-cons play by the same rules as everyone else, i.e. they have to actually justify their points of view rather than just use a knee-jerk accusation of the other side.

Anyone who’s been on the net for long knows there are millions of thinking Americans who are totally outraged at the lack of a real debate on the war in Iraq and other key issues, such as federal spending. Most of these are Democrats, but the number of conservative Republicans among these is growing rapidly. Maybe this ports deal will finally get the real debate about the war on terror started.