Our foreign minister wakes up early in the morning. He goes to his office before the other employees and starts working before most of Cairo's inhabitants wake up. Those who know him say he works tirelessly day in and day out. This is all Minister Aboul Gheit does, though, and if he decides to do something else, he gets it wrong. Some of our ministers make some mistakes from time to time, while he does all the time. Aboul Gheit has got almost all issues wrong (Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and the region stretching from Iran to Sudan) and now he is making all these mistakes together in the Gaza War. Some people say that the minister's role and diplomacy only consist in carrying out, and not making, foreign policy. They also say that the performance of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs must reflect the country's bleak internal situation. This idea, though, is more wrong than right. Strong states do not need a ministry of foreign affairs and the role of such a ministry is more urgent in cases of weakness and not of strength. A country's real diplomatic skills emerge in cases of recessions or downturns and not of expansion and victory. The role of diplomacy is precisely to give unreal strength to a country. In other words, the performance of diplomacy is broader and bigger than the country's real strength. Unfortunately, the situation in Egypt is completely different, as Egyptian diplomacy is weaker than Egypt's interior and Egypt's diplomacy pulls the country's reputation down. Under Minister Aboul Gheit, Egyptian diplomacy has become an example of how to reduce a country's weight and status. Under Aboul Gheit, Egypt has borne many mistakes, made by the minister and not by the state. Our Foreign Minister appeared smiling and cheerful with his Israeli counterpart Livni a few hours before the catastrophe, as if we had agreed on what has happened. Our minister started talking about controlling the borders with Gaza as if this were all that mattered to us. The press then reported on him saying that he had warned about what has happened. Thus, he who warns is excused, as if our army, and not Israel's, is the one which has carried out this despicable holocaust. I wish our foreign minister kept silent until he goes sleeping. If he did, Egypt would gain dignity and this would be much better.
