Last Friday, I wrote an article on the events in Egypt to be published on Saturday, and handed it over to the editorial department at noon, because Al-Hayat's last page is usually finalized early. That day had barely passed when King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz spoke in support of the interim administration in Egypt, and criticized the attitudes of the U.S. administration on the popular uprising that toppled the Muslim Brotherhood-led regime. King Abdullah II of Jordan also spoke and said something similar. Meanwhile, I know for a fact that Gulf countries have longstanding positions opposed to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and suspicious of the Islamist group's intentions and goals. I had noted this in my article based on what I heard from Gulf leaders over many years and decades, and official statements came to only prove what the Brotherhood and any Arab observer already knew, and the Obama administration denied. The Obama administration thus criticized the declaration of a state of emergency, even though successive U.S. administrations remained silent about the state of emergency in Egypt for 30 years of Hosni Mubarak's rule. Saudi Arabia is coming under daily campaigns in the West because it pursues an independent policy. I hope the reader will notice that I did not say a great or ideal policy, but an independent policy. Indeed, the country has sufficient capabilities to pursue the policies that suit it, rather than suit the U.S. and Israel. Some of these campaigns are almost comical, given how impossible it is for them to be true. Case in point: the Saudi ‘princess' who occupied the Western press over the past two months. However, the full name of the woman in question is ‘Hadrami,' which cannot possibly be a name borne by a Saudi princess. Before that and after, there has been news reports claiming that the United States will overtake Saudi Arabia in oil production by the year 2020. The International Energy Agency decided this was the case based on the newly developed technology to exploit hydrocarbon resources locked in shale rocks and tar sands. However, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said that oil output in the U.S. might instead peak in 2020, with its own forecasts 47 percent below those of the IEA. Personally, I wish that countries in both the east and the west would overtake Saudi Arabia in oil production, for a clear and simple reason: Saudi's productive capacity puts it under immense and continuous pressure to produce enough to meet the needs of other countries, much beyond what Saudi itself needs to produce to fund its development projects. As a result, a finite substance is being depleted to meet the needs of others. Another consequence is that the Saudi leadership comes under relentless Western blackmail that takes many forms. Nevertheless, Saudi's economic power has helped protect the independence of its political decision-making, as we saw with the recent statements endorsing regime change in Egypt through a popular uprising backed by the army. All writers in Al-Hayat are guaranteed by the publisher the freedom to express their views, and it is often the case that our newspaper publishes an opinion and its opposite in one edition. Personally, I have always supported the position of the Gulf countries regarding how the Muslim Brotherhood have dealt with these countries, and how the Brotherhood supported secret organizations with suspicious objectives, to say the least. However, at the same time, I support the Muslim Brotherhood against Israel and its advocates in the ranks of the neocons, the U.S. Likudniks, and the pro-Israel lobby. I read an article by an author of this ilk titled "Crush the Muslim Brotherhood," and I pray for God to crush the enemies of humanity everywhere. The article charges the Brotherhood with terrorism, although the majority of its members are simple, devout folk. True, terrorist groups emerged from the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, but the group itself is not a terror group. It is Israel that monopolizes terrorism in our region, and practices it and gives pretexts to all terrorism in response. Meanwhile, those who attack churches in Egypt, like another article claimed, are terrorists and not of the Brotherhood. I also read, "Don't Back the Wrong Side in Egypt," in reference to the Obama administration's support for the Muslim Brotherhood. I say to the advocates of Israel that the only thing that is common to all Egyptians is hatred of Israel, to an equal extent between the religiously devout and the seculars, the Muslim Brotherhood and the army, and the ultra-orthodox Salafists and liberals. Therefore, calling for bolstering "Military-to-military Ties with Egypt," as in the title of another article by the same bunch, does not benefit the pro-Israel gang because the Egyptian army is anti-Israel as much as the Brotherhood is, if not more. The Brotherhood is not fit to rule, but I defend the group and its supporters as a key segment of the Egyptian people nonetheless. I hope that the coming democratic regime promised to the Egyptians will accommodate the Brotherhood as a main political actor.
