Does he have a glimmer? Not really. He went on to reject the prospect of ousting Hussein, saying “the ruling regime is an internal affair that concerns every state taking into account its cultural, religious and social peculiarities and its political and economic development without external intervention to impose a certain type or model.”Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak …, listing mistakes he said had brought the Arabs to “this dangerous stage,” started with Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which he said “opened the door wide for an intensive foreign presence in the region.”
That was followed by “the absence of any real Iraqi efforts to address the crisis of trust” with its neighbors, Mubarak said in the nationally televised address.
“My hope is that the Iraqi government will realize the seriousness of the situation in which it put itself in–and us in–and that the different international forces will realize the dangerous repercussions of any military action on the safety and stability of the Middle East region as well as on the safety and stability of the world as a whole,” Mubarak said. [Associated Press, 3/19/03]
Wrong. Dictatorships quite simply have no right to exist and no legitimate claim to sovereignty; any free nation has a moral right to invade them and topple their governments.
Mubarak’s statement merely betrays his own autocratic sympathies. We’re taking notes.