Dubai’s Dunkirk Moment - The Source - WSJ

The tantalizingly close restructuring of Dubai World’s $23.5 billion debt has provided the United Arab Emirates with a rare Dunkirk moment.

In 1940, the British snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and certain invasion by evacuating 300,000 troops from the beaches of northern France. As we all know, Britain with the help of its allies recovered from the near disaster to eventually defeat Hitler’s Germany and the Axis powers. The rest is history.

Officials in the U.A.E. are now claiming a similar turning point in Dubai’s battle to defeat the all out assault on its economy by the dark forces of the global financial crisis. The scale of the estimated $100 billion of debt racked up by Dubai, and its so-called government related entities, has presented the biggest challenge to the U.A.E.’s hereditary rulers since the nation emerged from its colonial past into an uncertain future in 1971.