Hastert reflects on meetings with Mubarak, fate of Egypt

Dennis Hastert reflected on the news that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had relinquished power Friday with a perspective closer than many current members of Congress.

After all, the former House speaker and longtime 14th District congressman from Plano met the Egyptian president several times during his career and was even berated by him during a visit to Egypt a decade ago.

In an interview Friday shortly after the news broke, Hastert recalled a Middle East trip in the late 1990s, when then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich and others were scheduled to meet with Knesset, the Israeli parliament.

Mubarak, he said, had fits over the United States’ apparent favoritism of Israel.

“(Former Louisiana Rep.) Bob Livingston put us on a plane to placate Mubarak,” Hastert said. “We kind of expected it. We were sent over to be chastised. When we got there, he railed at us for two hours.”

Mubarak, Hastert said, argued that the U.S. needed to spread itself out more evenly across the Middle East, a piece of advice Hastert took to heart.

In more stable times, Hastert said, the United States’ relationship with Mubarak was akin to one with the Shah of Iran, who left for exile in 1979, following months of strikes.

“He was our friend, not the best dealer of democracy, but someone we could deal with,” Hastert said.

Like political leaders from both sides of the aisle, Hastert welcomed the transition to Egyptian military rule, but also expressed concern for the country’s future, as it works to transition to democracy.

“When you take a country like Egypt, they’ve never had a real democracy, even in the past 70 years,” he said.

“They don’t have it in their history. And so the worry is, when you have a person who is a strong leader (depart), things can fall apart. You can look at Yugoslavia. Everything broke up.”

Hastert expressed concern about the effect Mubarak’s departure could have on civil unrest in surrounding countries, including Jordan, Turkey and Morocco.

“There could be a domino effect,” he said.

And an effect, undoubtedly, on the U.S. economy. “We’re so dependent on that area for petrochemicals, that affects our international aspect but also our economy,” he said.