EDITORIAL ALIENATING HEARTS, MINDS COLLAPSE OF PORTS DEAL HURTS CULTURAL WAR EFFORT.

IN Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai, George W. Bush has an Arab Harriet Miers.

Like Miers, the Supreme Court nominee who provoked a revolt within Bush's own party, the Dubai Ports World controversy was a political disaster for the administration. So the company at the direction of the sheik bowed out of its deal to take control over six U.S. ports, sparing the president further embarrassment and a certain political defeat.

In the end, all the political players get something: congressional Democrats and Republicans who agitated against the deal get a clear victory; Bush gets to save a little face; and the United Arab Emirates, having tendered a huge favor to the president of the United States, gets to draw on this new reserve of goodwill sometime in the future.

But the demise of this agreement doesn't speak well for American politics, or our prospects of winning the cultural battle that lies at the heart of the War on Terror.

Although it was fair for critics to raise questions about foreign control of American ports, no one ever demonstrated any credible security risks that it posed. Opposition to the Dubai deal relied on a cultural mistrust of Arabs and Muslims. That is, prejudice in the truest sense of the word basing a decision on preconceived notions, not the facts.

In a politicized rush to judgment, we have only given ammunition to the radicals who say America is anti-Islam.