Oh, Now I Get It!

Maybe there's a very simple and reasonable explanation for why the Bush administration is hot to approve the Dubai World Ports deal — beyond the fact that the company can do the job. But of course, obscuring the real reasons for doing something is so ingrained, they just can't tell us.

Jane at Firedoglake cites digby noting Sen. John Warner's comment that the Dubai ports deal is about preserving the Fifth Fleet's access to Dubai's deep water port. And she adds this quote from Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies:

The Defense Department agreed to our request to station an additional aircraft carrier battle group in the waters off Iran temporarily, as a deterrent signal to Tehran. The Navy was growing increasingly concerned with anti-ship missiles that Iran was placing on islands in the Persian Gulf and on its coastline, particularly at the narrow point in the Gulf leading to the Indian Ocean, the Straits of Hormuz. In early May [1996], DOD announced that Iran had acquired long-range missiles from North Korea and was engaged in a program to protect its missiles in hardened bunkers.

The Navy relied on two ports in the Persian Gulf. Only one, in the United Arab Emirates, could handle an aircraft carrier. That port, near Dubai, saw more U.S. Navy ships anchored and more U.S. sailors ashore than any harbor outside the United States during the 1990s.