Other Shoe Alert

Over at Slate, Mickey Kaus weighs in on the Dubai ports deal:

"Is it comforting matter that "security" at American ports will still be "controlled by U.S. federal agencies led by the Coast Guard and the U.S. Customs and Border Control Agency ... ." Not if what you're worried about is a small cell of people looking for a way to get around the Coast Guard's security. Just having a port operator that is more easily approached by people who speak Arabic vastly increases the risk, at least the risk from Arab jihadists, no?"

Sure, this is a good point but it's more than that: it's essentially the other shoe that I was waiting to have drop during the debate on whether to go to war with Iraq. To explain: the Bush administration felt that Saddam's WMD, whether he actually had them or had the ability and opportunity to make them in the future, could easily be given to Al Qaeda. Those opposed to the war often insisted that Saddam, a fairly secularist Mideast leader, was anathema to the Jihadists and those two could never cooperate. A third possibility never seemed to be mentioned by anyone: even if Saddam wouldn't give his WMDs to terrorists, wasn't it possible that some person or persons in Saddam's army or laboratories or power structure, someone with Jihadist leanings, might do so? That would be the equivalent of the "small cell" that Kaus cites here.

It's this third possibility, the people somewhere in the middle of the hierarchy who can exploit matters towards their own ends, that might be the deal breaker with the Dubai ports matter. It's just interesting to me that no one ever raised this point in connection with Iraq.