Ports in a Storm

National unity has been hard to find since just after 9/11, but it's back. President Bush, long maligned for dividing America, has truly brought together young and old, red states and blue states, men and women.

This rare moment of unity is the visceral reaction to an idea so stunningly unwise that political opponents are stumbling over one another to reach the same cameras and microphones to say the same thing – stop the ports takeover now.The controversy stems from the sale of a British firm that runs port operations in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans and Miami. London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation has been sold to Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates, a nation that happened to supply two of the 9/11 hijackers.

That does not make the government of the UAE an avowed ally of Osama bin Laden, but it doesn't make it a welcome addition to our already bleak port security landscape either.

Two billion tons of cargo move through U.S. ports every year, with less than 10 percent receiving any kind of meaningful security inspection. Against that backdrop, it is impossible to imagine how smart people could sit around a table and see no danger in this acquisition.

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall as people from the Department of Defense, the FBI and the Coast Guard heard of the sale that would put daily port operations in the hands of sheiks, many of whom at the very least share the fairly common Arab worldview that Israel should not exist and its allies – like America – are, shall we say, problematic.

There are those who have said this is not an issue of an Arab nation running American port operations, that instead it should be a question of whether any foreign nation should have such control.

Fair point, but needlessly broad. I don't think we've had too much reason for sleepless nights while those ports were under British control. My first choice is for American companies to do virtually everything in America, but in this global economy, I'm prepared to have port operations run by firms from just about any nation that meets some basic conditions: no smattering of celebrations on 9/11, no network of schools teaching the need to eradicate Israel and other infidels and no sizable al-Qaeda population.

Am I asking too much? Apparently so, in view of what the White House is asking of us.

We are asked not merely to tolerate but to embrace NSA wiretaps because they are a vital part of the extreme caution necessary in the post-9/11 world.

We are asked not merely to tolerate but to embrace detentions at Guantánamo and at secret prisons elsewhere because these are different circumstances born of the extreme caution necessary in the post-9/11 world.

I remain proudly on board for both of those arguments, but any administration asking for such trust has an obligation to be consistent. A cavalier wink at the notion of an Islamic nation assuming operational control of U.S. ports is a nearly schizophrenic departure from everything else Mr. Bush has told us about the war on terror.

We have been told it will involve tough decisions. We have been told we cannot worry about world opinion when we know what is right. And we have been told that we will not generalize or demonize in our attitudes toward Muslims, but we will face hard choices as we differentiate between the peaceful portions of the Islamic world and those who wish to kill us.

Where did that logic go? It is what got Mr. Bush re-elected, and to see it fly out the window is distressing to anyone who has been energized by his tirelessness and courage in setting the nation on a proper war footing.

I don't expect perfection. I can tolerate some foot-dragging in a vice presidential hunting accident story; I can even stomach the bungles of FEMA. Lessons are presumably learned in both cases.

This I cannot take. We cannot withstand a lesson that might come in the form of dead Americans due to our inattention to the ill wisdom of this ports deal.

The president must change his mind, and I pray that he will.