The Diplomatic Cost of the New TSA Security Rules

That didn’t take long. Found in today’s New York Times:

“It is unfair to discriminate against over 150 million people because of the behavior of one person,” Dora Akunyili, Nigeria’s information minister, said Monday, referring Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of hiding explosives in his underwear on the Dec. 25 flight.

The Algerian ambassador to the United States, Abdallah Baali, said he would file a protest once he was given formal notice of the change.

“The United States has the right to protect the security of its citizens,” Mr. Baali said. “But this is discrimination against the citizens of Algeria, who do not pose any particular risk to the people of the United States.”

Baali goes on to make the excellent point that the new security rules “play into the narrative that Al Qaeda has made up, where it is Islam versus the West.” This is everything that President Obama’s Cairo speech and John Brennan’s CSIS speech sought to avoid.