Thursday, August 17, 2006

When Muhammad Hasanyn Haykal hit 80, he announced his retirement from writing. I offered to write a thank-you article for As-Safir, but I was told that the publisher would not like that because he is close to him. Little did I know that Haykal resigned from writing, but not from talking. And he has not stopped. Next time, I want him to promise to resign from speaking, writing, sitting, and grimacing. You will never know. Notice that in his talks on Aljazeera, he never pushes the political conclusions to their logical ends, and never breaks with the Mubarak regime completely, and does not burn bridges. Today, he praised Fu'ad Sanyurah. Also, he has the annoying habit of interrupting..himself. He would be talking like this: And I now want to talk about the role of Saudi Arabia..but wait, I want to discuss US foreign policy in Latin America... He also bothers me that he poses as this great expert on Western governments, and he knows very little. He said today that there was hostility to Israel in the US during this war of aggression. Haykal: resign. And seriously this time. Of course, Haykal should have resigned back in 1967.