Mubarak's Threat

Page A-20 of Friday’s Washington Post reports that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak offered the observation that “continued U.S. military aid to Israel could prompt Arab countries to seek nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.”

Finally, Mr. Mubarak has said something that makes sense, namely that U.S. aid to Israel should cease. The reason that it should cease, however, is the opposite of Mubarak’s rationale. While he believes that the cessation of aid to Israel would hasten its non-existence (his ultimate goal), the opposite is actually true. Readers of this site are familiar with the argument that U.S. aid, far from sustaining Israel’s sovereignty, actually undermines it and assures its eventual destruction.

And so Mubarak’s lack of understanding offsets his hostility to Israel perfectly, and results in his advocacy of policy that would serve the opposite of his goals. Perhaps this advocacy of policy that undermines his own goals is Mubarak’s way of bucking for a job at the U.S. State Department.

But the essential point to note here, for anyone attempting to get a fix on Egypt’s commitment to the fight against international terrorism, is that Mubarak, president of the nation second only to Israel in terms of U.S. aid, is threatening to bite the hand that feeds him by advocating the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by unstable Arab regimes. This threat was at the dedication of a bridge in Egypt; care to guess who footed the bill for its construction?

For years, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been the “good cops” in the Arab world’s dealings with the U.S. With allies like this, who needs Syrian, Iraqi or Taliban enemies?

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