Posted on 03/03/2009 11:53:34 PM PST by forkinsocket
While his father hosted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Sharm el-Sheikh resort on the tip of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula earlier this week, Gamal Mubarak quietly slipped into Washington for a "private visit," multiple sources have told Foreign Policy.
The younger Mubarak, who is widely thought by Egypt hands to be positioning himself to succeed his father, prefers to keep a low profile on his trips to the United States. In comments paraphrased by Al-Masry al-Youm, an independent daily newspaper in Cairo, Gamal said he would "participate in seminars on the global financial crisis and its impact on Egypt and the region, and ... meet with research centers and congressmen to know their vision regarding the Middle East and the future of the Egyptian-American relations."
But according to one source familiar with Gamal's visit, the unofficial purpose is likely to "take the temperature" in Washington ahead of his father's rumored trip to D.C. later this spring. A spokesman for the Egyptian Embassy in Washington said he had no information to share about either visit.
The Egyptian government recently released Ayman Nour, a populist politician who made a surprising showing in the 2005 presidential elections and was arrested soon afterward for allegedly forging signatures on his party's application documents.
The Bush administration had repeatedly called for Nour's release to no avail, causing some tension in the U.S.-Egypt relationship. In December 2007, Congress voted to withhold $100 million in aid to the Egyptian military, although then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice later waived it through.
Gamal is an extremely controversial figure in Egypt, given his increasing role in politics and the uncertainty surrounding who will succeed his 80-year-old father, who has ruled Egypt since assuming the presidency after Anwar Sadat's assassination in October 1981.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecable.foreignpolicy.com ...
Of course I'm kidding. That was mean and culterally insensitive.
Besides, we all know Barry's not Muslim, or a Christian or whatever else. He too narcissistic to believe in anything other than his own grandiose persona and ego.
I was living in Cairo when Sadat was killed and the word in the cafes and in the press was that Mubarak would only be in power for a short time while things calm down.
Today Egyptians joke about Mubarak and his tenure.
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