Christmas came early for ailing Citibank, which received a $7.5 billion cash infusion from the government of Abu Dhabi last week, bailing the bank out of its massive subprime loan crisis. The super-rich Gulf emirate will be one of the largest shareholders of the largest American bank — provided federal regulators approve the deal.

That shouldn't be a problem. The Dubai Ports World fiasco from 2006 occurred when populist fears of Arab control of U.S. ports — high-value terror targets — scuttled the deal. Congress is on board with this arrangement, though. After, all, somebody needed to rescue the troubled bank, the failure of which would have precipitated an enormous crisis. If not the Emiratis, then who? Not American financiers, who are struggling with credit-crisis fallout. In the short term, at least, Americans should be grateful for the deep-pocketed sheiks.

Better get used to this sort of thing. With the price of oil nearing $100 a barrel, oil-producing states have more money than they know what to do with. And they're going on a U.S. buying spree. With the dollar falling like a rock on the international currency market and oil priced in dollars, these countries need to convert petrodollars into hard assets. Get ready for the Arab version of the U.S. acquisitions mania Japanese investors undertook during the 1980s.

The last thing this country needs is the return of '80s-style xenophobic outrage (remember public floggings of Toyotas?). Still, there's reason for concern. One important difference between then and now is that many of these investors are not private individuals or companies, but sovereign governments. It's naive to think that those governments would be averse to leveraging investment clout for political influence in years to come. And financial watchdogs worry about the lack of transparency in government-run investment funds the world over.

Don't like it? Don't blame the Arabs (or the Chinese, whose manufacturing boom has Beijing's investment coffers bursting). Abu Dhabi didn't force Citibank to make all those bad loans or pressure U.S. consumers to buy more house than they could afford. Foreigners aren't forcing Americans to run up our indebtedness to them so we can finance the lifestyle we like.

Call him a crank if you must, but Rep. Ron Paul told an inconvenient truth when he said in a recent GOP presidential debate that foreigners buying up American assets "is a natural consequence of what happens when you live beyond your means." One way or another, the piper, inshallah, will be paid.