Dave — I’ve got to take umbrage with the fear of “sending the wrong message” to the “Arab world.” Choosing to do or to not do things based on what presumptive “message” is sent is a reactive, speculative, even irrational policy that I’ve criticized time and again. Here, I suspect that the UAE will continue to find and take advantage of business opportunities in the United States; that the host of preexisting reasons why the UAE has been a friend in the war on terror will not evaporate; and that the proposal to wipe out our foreign aid to Egypt, for example, if implemented, would be a far greater insult to Arabs than the sinking of the ports deal, which seems merely irritating to a handful of chief dealmakers running a single Arab company.
