UAE disappointment at US attitude

Washington Times:

It has been a tough week for Essam al Tamimi. One of this Persian Gulf city's most pro-U.S. business leaders, he says he has been questioning his admiration for America since Dubai's bid to manage six U.S. ports ignited a firestorm in Washington.
"What's happening in the United States is disappointing for people like me," said Mr. al Tamimi, founder and managing partner of the United Arab Emirates' largest law firm, Al Tamimi & Co.
Businessmen, government officials and other residents of Dubai have experienced bewilderment and disbelief as they watched the U.S. reaction to the ports takeover by the state-owned company DP World, the Dubai-based ports operator.
Their reaction reflectsthe city's decades-long search for an identity, inevitably influenced by its Middle East location and Muslim traditions, but also by ambitions to become a free-market economy that attracts the West's wealthiest investors.
"I have a U.S. mentality. I was educated in the United States," said Mr. al Tamimi, who spent 18 months at Harvard Law School, ending in 1984. "I have a home in Idaho and spend most of my vacations in America."
But he said he had never expected the passions exhibited last week in Washington and the six cities whose ports may soon be managed by DPW -- New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Miami and Newark, N.J.
"It has changed my mentality," he said in his office on the 29th floor of Dubai's World Trade Center tower.
"We can build bridges between East and West by having bilateral businesses and common interests," he said. "By isolating this part of the world and pushing us in the corner, how do the Americans think things can change? By magic? I never talked like this before."

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