Khaled Fahmy خالد فهمي Posts

Op-Ed in the CNN on February 4, 2011 Editor’s note: Khaled Fahmy is the chairman of the history department at the American University in Cairo.  Cairo, Egypt (CNN) — The events of Wednesday offer a brutal example of President Hosni Mubarak’s disastrous security-driven policy. For nine days, pro-democracy demonstrators had taken to the streets asking for nothing less than a complete change of the regime. On Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of people congregated on Tahrir Square at the center of the city asking Mubarak to leave and effectively saying that they had had enough of his bankrupt, soulless and dull leadership. Eventually, Mubarak…

Published in Egypt Independent on December 26, 2010 Ever since WikiLeaks began posting some quarter million leaked cables sent by US embassies on 28 November, people around the world have eagerly read about secrets revealed by what the WikiLeaks website calls “the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain.” Given America’s heavy involvement in the Middle East, it was only natural to expect the uncovering of a large number of cables sent by US embassies and consulates in the region. And again, as expected, many of the leaks have revealed details embarrassing to US…