"You know, I never came across a country - and I'm talking about Lebanon when Rafik Hariri was the prime minister - where the prime minister says to me: 'I am not Lebanese, I am Saudi.' "" Notice how Hariri advocate, Robert Fisk, gets upset and says: "This is a quotation that Hariri, who was born in Lebanon but held a Saudi passport, has no chance of denying - he was murdered in Beirut just over two years ago." Would you like a boo hoo hoo here, Mr. Fisk? But Haykal continues: ""He was money asking for respectability and respectability asking for money. He told me one day: 'The premiership of Lebanon - the cost of it is in billions of dollars.'"
So when I read Haykal's comments on Mubarak I could not help but notice that it took Haykal 26 years to speak out against Mubarak. What political courage.