Thursday, February 03, 2011

Usamah Al-Baz

You don't hear about this foreign policy adviser of Mubarak: an opportunist who was Nasserist with Nasser, Sadatist with Sadat, and Mubarakist with Mubarak.  He was in the 1960s an informer on Arab students in the US reporting to Nasser mukhabrat apparatus.  He later was a key foreign policy adviser.  I was with Sadiq Jalal Al-`Adhm at CSIS in DC and we ran into him, and I grilled him about the Mubarak regime (I remember that Al-`Adhm was so offended with how I grilled him and said publicly that I should go easy on him, which does not surprise me given the liberal transformation of this ex Leftist).  I brought up the terror visited by the regime on dissidents and to my surprise, Al-Baz said that he has not been agreeing with the oppressive methods of the regime.  I asked him why he does not go public, and he did not answer.