Since King Farouk, Egypt has emerged as a respectable power in the Arab World.
Now, with foreign influence, the protesters succeeded in putting their country in jeopardy. I feel sorry for Egypt when I think that the country of Mohamed Abdelwahab, Om Kalthoum and Farid Al Atrash will never again be the same and that the nation lost its values and its respect. If President Mubarak is humiliated, so are the country and its people, as the Saudi King Abdullah supposedly said in his telephone conversation with President Obama on February 10, “if the US continues to try and get rid of Mubarak, the Saudi royal family would bend all its resources to undoing Washington's plans for Egypt and nullifying their consequences.”

Meanwhile the Saudis seem to change their relations with the United States, which date back to 1950. Mubarak and King Abdullah are not only strategically allied but they are friends. The King does not like to see his friend pushed aside and humiliated.

It is hard to comprehend how the Egyptian people fell into such a trap from which it will be hard for them to emerge again.  As for our president, I believe that by mixing himself in the Egyptian revolt he showed to the world his real intentions. By being indecisive in this situation and by calling Hosni Mubarak to resign, instead backing him, Obama showed his harshness towards an ally and an elderly man of 82 years. This seemed to be a lack of compassion, insulting and disgraceful, coming from a president of a great nation like the United States. I wonder if any leader and ally will trust him again. I feel ashamed of my president.

I believe that those who revolted will be ashamed of themselves because they caused their president to be humiliated, even if they thought doing something right. They will find themselves in a situation worse than the one they were in before, because what our president did to Mubarak, he will do to them too. They will find themselves under a dictatorship, worse than the one before. There is an Arab saying: “he ran from the drizzle and found himself under the gutter.”

As for Israel, if I could advise them, I would say they should stay calm and reinforce their army, because Egypt, with all its size and force will be besieged by problems. To the contrary, I believe that King Abdullah deserves to be lauded for not having stabbed Mubarak in the back, but having well aimed his remarks. History shows us that everything changes in life. As for Obama he made a large scale strategic error. Instead of helping the Arab World, he created a disaster and indirectly helped strengthening Iran.

Copyright 2011, Emile Tubiana
Veteran and senior citizen