Process Is Important

It is usually a bad idea to pass legislation that is prompted by either emotion or narrowly-focused election year politics. Unfortunately both of these seem to be the primary motivations behind the embarrassing spectacle on Capitol Hill yesterday that effectively killed the misnamed Dubai “ports” deal.

I have already stated in this space that I didn’t have a firm position on the deal, and wouldn’t until I learned more about what’s involved. Would that it were that more members of Congress, as well as more members of the electorate, felt the same.

Indeed, the table was set for all of us to learn more about the deal, and its implications, if any, for national security. The Dubai-owned company itself agreed to a forty-five day waiting period during which time further investigations could be made into the matter so that everyone involved could make sure they had the facts straight.

But when all was said and done, facts didn’t matter to those in Washington who were preening for the cameras, and the voters back home, and determined to kill the deal, regardless of whether killing it was the right thing to do.

And was it the right thing to do? I don’t know. As I said, we were never given the opportunity to get all the facts. Frankly, what facts were already known about the deal – as well as the United Arab Emirates in general – pointed toward not slamming the door on the UAE at least, or allowing the deal to go through at most.

It’s possible that whatever might have been revealed during the forty-five day period would have either reaffirmed this, or refuted it. But we will never know, will we? Because when all was said and done, we didn’t think we need to know. All most of the American people “knew” was that a company owned by an Arab government would own six U.S. ports. And all that most members of Congress knew, or wanted to know, was that people who would vote in November were vehemently opposed to such a scenario.

This might have been a perfect opportunity for Senators and Representatives to actually communicate with their constituents and educate them on what was going on – a legitimate function for an elected government official with greater access to information of this nature than the average voter.

They might have thus made more people understand that the company would not own the ports, it would merely be managing a few terminals within each port – as the Chinese already do on the west coast. They might have pointed out that the U.S. already sells sophisticated weapons systems to the government of the UAE. They might have reminded the people that Dubai is probably the most westernized Arab entity in the world, ever trying to grow more so, and one of the most popular places for U.S. service-members in that region of the world to take leave. And they might have informed their voters that the port of Dubai is friendlier to hosting U.S. warships than the port of San Francisco. But that was less important than manipulating fears and emotions in order to score political points.

So, as is, we have publicly given the government of Dubai a slap in the face – no small thing in Arab culture. Members of the royal family are infuriated, and hold out the prospect of retaliating financially – a move that could have greater impact on the U.S. than we might realize initially. Not only that, but this will likely only provide our enemies in the Arab world with more fodder for their propaganda campaigns, providing “evidence” of an American prejudice against people of Arab descent. And it could give our allies in this part of the world pause as they wonder if they will be perpetually relegated to “second-class-friend” status.

Whether such distressing developments actually result remains to be seen. But in view of the fact that they could result, wouldn’t it have just made sense to maintain cool heads and actually wait until all the facts were in?

When hearing of this short-circuiting of the agreed-upon waiting period by both the House and Senate, I was initially inclined to say that the process failed in this matter. But that’s just not true. We failed, because we refused to let the process run its course. And failure is a common companion of those who allow themselves to be governed by emotions and narrow self interests, rather than truth and facts.