Folks have a point that this is a transfer of the Operations of these ports, not the Security, but you have to realize that operations and security have to work together to keep things running smoothly, and the access people working the operations side will have to security issues is where the potential for security breeches lies. The port situation is bad already, this can potentially make it much worse.
I don't buy into the whole good will aspect for U.S.-Middle East relations. Many Arab nations are literally playing both sides here, and making money in the process. They don't crack down on the fundamentalists, because they themselves do not want to become targets of those radicals. Many of them in fact support, if not openly, the terrorists and their ideals (or for the economic and power possibilities that become available) when they attack western interests. And IIRC it is still considered rude for one muslim to question another muslim's beliefs and how he acts on those convictions.
They'll take whatever bone we throw to them....begging is very commonplace, especially with what I saw in the streets of Baghdad, so I don't see why it would be much different at the political level in the region.
Many of those same beggers in the streets in Baghdad often were selling information on our movements to the insurgency that same day.
UAE is a "partner" in the war on terrorism because we "bought" their support with massive contract deals. Most, if not all, of those little white trailers that the soldiers live inside while in Iraq that you may have see in the news..... all the one's I've ever seen were made in the UAE. Stamped right on the frame.
Many of the Coalition was bought this way. Britain got many security contracts, such as those with Blackwater, and we've purchased many tens of thousands of HESCO Bastions from them for force protection. Russian contracts included the purchase of an ungodly amount of all types of wood products from them, and I saw many Russian military air transports in and out of BIAP. Turkey got trucking transportation contracts. South Korea got many service contracts for laundry, cleaning, and cooking facilities. And so on....
Throw them all the money and contracts you want to at Middle Eastern countries, they'll still play both sides, if not out of their convictions, then out of simple self interest or survival.
(Pakistan is a perfect example of this --- the Pakistani government cannot go after terrorists in their western frontier --- which they really don't control anyway--- or allow the American military to do so, because it could mean the fall of the government from a revolt of the people of Pakistan who support the terrorists more than they do the west.)
They may even conduct a few raids and round up the usual suspects to placate the west, get another bone thrown to them....then hand the prisoners the shovels to dig themselves out with.
Things are only getting worse.
