[DubaiSis]

I must say I was really bothered by the Romney posturing. Here's what I said on my Facebook page

Adding to the list of things about living in Dubai that changed my life is getting to know my Consul General personally. Those people protect us as Americans and their role is invaluable. Plus they are real people with real lives. Using the death of someone who was undoubtedly the friend of a friend of mine as a tool to try to make the Commander in Chief look bad is really uncool and most definitely not presidential.

But I think how this could wash out in the end is this: the US needs a strong ally in North Africa. It has traditionally been Egypt, and while it would be really helpful to have Egypt as a favored ally due to it's common border with Israel, Libya could fill a lot of that void. Libya jumped in and apologized on behalf of some lunatics in their fringes. Egypt did nothing by way of apology for violence that also happened there. Egypt has a lot more to lose by losing us - tourism is about all they have left and I can tell you Americans aren't going anywhere near Egypt right now, even though the good parts of the country are perfectly safe - and Libya doesn't have nearly as much to gain from our friendship. They have oil, but we don't get our oil from there so us not liking them doesn't exactly keep their oil in the ground. But I think Libya will start popping up on people's radar as a vacation destination, it will start popping up on Mediterranean cruise routes, businesses will start opening offices there, and Americans will suddenly start finding themselves living the expat life in Libya. In otherwords, I think Libya will make lemonade out of this situation and Egypt will have a pile of rotten fruit. But that's me, and only time will tell!