Some information below or what I consider to be platitudes: - The role of Egypt at the Arab level has declined. Since the leadership in the Arab world is cut to fit Egypt, the decline of the nation may be attributed to a decline in Egyptian leadership. - For years now, the entire political discourse in Egypt has been focused on the presidential elections, specifically the issue of political inheritance. Since the upcoming presidential elections are a year or so away from now, the entire government will be the hostage of elections, be they the legislative elections in two months or the presidential elections that will follow. - There are a thousand issues in Egypt that must not be neglected in favor of that of the presidency and political inheritance. Take the issue of education, for example: In the past, the Egyptians played an important role in drafting the constitutions of Arab Gulf states and in the education renaissance there both before and after their independence. I can take the reader as far back as Ahmed Zaki and his book “Leila is Ill in Iraq” when he went in the 1940s to Egypt as an education inspector, travelling in a “Nern” bus [old bus]. In his last days, Ahmed Zaki used to call himself ‘Drs.' Ahmed Zaki, as he received a doctorate and then another at the Sorbonne. Today, students from the Gulf travel abroad for higher education, while primary education in Egypt is suffering, and all that remains for us is to bring teachers from the Gulf to teach in Egyptian schools. I argue that Egypt's role in the Arab leadership is still vacant, because it cannot be filled by any other Arab country. I remembered this after I read the statement of Maj. Gen Jamil Sayyed during a press conference in Beirut, in which he demanded that Egypt withdraw “one of its diplomats in Lebanon called Ahmed Helmi, because he is meeting with some Lebanese leaders and telling them that he speaks on behalf of Lieutenant General Omar Suleiman, and that Egypt will fight the Syrians in Lebanon”. My knowledge of Major General Jamil Sayyed is limited. We have only met once when he was the Deputy Head of the Second Bureau, when I asked him in the presence of colleagues Walid Choucair and Mohammad Choucair to mediate in a case involving another colleague of ours. He obliged quickly and we thanked him. When former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated, and the four officers were arrested, I did not accuse Maj. Gen Sayyed along with those who did, and instead ruled out any involvement by him in this crime. With this background, I hope that Maj. Gen Sayyed would believe me as I tell him that Egypt did not fight Syria in Lebanon, nor will it do such a thing. While the Maj. Gen. knows more about the intricacies of Lebanese politics than I do, the opposite is true when it comes to Egypt. I know President Hosni Mubarak and Lt. Gen. Omar Suleiman personally, and the President totally refuses to use intelligence officers in other Arab countries. I spoke with Lt. Gen. Omar Suleiman regarding the activities of Arab intelligence services in other countries and he said: “We don't do things like that”. All my interviews with the President and the Lt. Gen. are recorded or written. In truth, if Egypt dealt with others using its intelligence services, the situation would have been different. Today, the influence once exerted by Major General Abdul Hamid Ghaleb, the Egyptian ‘High Commissioner', has long been over, (from the famous embassy in Ramel el Zarif – Aisha Bakkar, near the spot where President Rene Moawad was assassinated). Today and for years now, the dominant subject in Egypt has been the presidency and political inheritance, as this seems more important that the interests of the people and the leadership of the nation to both the ruling caste and the opposition. With this, I can tell the Maj. Gen Sayyed with confidence – as my information is direct and from primary or principal sources as they say in doctorate theses – that the relations between Egypt and Syria are very good, despite the tension between the two presidents, and that the bilateral economic cooperation is excellent, and so is the cooperation between them and other countries of the region, which is the strongest and most important of its kind in past decades. This political positivity is to the credit of the Egyptian government, with the majority of the credit going to Jamal Mubarak. The economic issue is in his hands, and Egypt's economy has been growing by about seven percent for years. There is an economic bloc in the region consisting of Turkey, Syria, Egypt and Jordan, and soon Saudi Arabia and perhaps Iraq and other countries, and its success will compensate for some of the political failures. I will continue to consider it a political failure until Egypt returns to its Arab leadership role, which Egypt needs as much as the Arabs need it if not more. We have come to the day when Egypt is facing threats to the Nile waters by the states of the Nile Basin, which are ignoring the needs of 82 million Egyptians as they build dams and canals, i.e. Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania. These countries are turning their backs on Egypt, although President Mubarak once told me that any assault on Egypt's rights in the Nile waters are a ‘declaration of war'. I referred to brother Jamal Mubarak in this column, and I hope that the reader will be prudent when interpreting my words today, and will wait until tomorrow's column where I shall tackle the issue of presidential elections, and will be as frank as I was today, if not franker. [email protected]
