Egypt has had its fill of heroes in the form of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar al-Sadat, Mubarak, and Morsi — all false prophets of particular versions of modernity — but it is crying out for leadership. Unfortunately, the politicians stocking the new government do not inspire confidence that Egypt will finally get what it needs. […]
The ostensibly secular President Hosni Mubarak took 18 years to come to secular India to receive the Indira Gandhi Prize for International Understanding; he had visited China more than once during that time. The avowedly Muslim Brotherhood member President Mohamed Morsi is visiting India within two years of assuming office. The conclusion suggests itself. Mr. […]
Two years ago …, a popular uprising ended Hosni Mubarak‘s thirty-year reign. Egypt’s revolution is still churning, of course, and that country is now deeply polarized between the ruling Muslim Brotherhood, which has embraced many of Mubarak’s autocratic tendencies in its attempt to consolidate power, and a non-Islamist opposition that fears theocratic rule in Egypt. […]
Egypt is going through what may be the most serious crisis since the overthrow of the Mubarak regime. At its heart is the decision by its Muslim Brotherhood-aligned president, Mohammed Morsi, to issue a decree that shelters his actions from judicial review, effectively giving him more power than his predecessor had. Denounced as a latter-day […]
Some months after the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein, I sat at lunch with the aging Hosni Mubarak. He was then 76 years old and hard of hearing but soon to “run” for the presidency for a fifth time in 2005. The four times previous, there had been no election at […]
President Hosni Mubarak did not even wait forPresident Obama’s words to be translated before he shot back. “You don’t understand this part of the world,” the Egyptian leader broke in. “You’re young.” Mr. Obama, during a tense telephone call the evening of Feb. 1, 2011, had just told Mr. Mubarak that his speech, broadcast to hundreds of […]
looking beyond borders 