Controversy as Sisi confidant lashes out at Saudi

Outspoken comments by veteran Egyptian journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, in which he suggested that Saudi Arabia was “sinking in the swamp of Yemen” and praised Iran for its nuclear deal with international powers, have caused a stir across the Arab World.

Speaking this week to Lebanon’s As-Safir newspaper, Heikal, a one-time confidant of Gamal Abdel Nasser who now claims to be close to the country’s current leader President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, suggested that Saudi Arabia was facing a crisis in Yemen that could have consequences for its own ruling system.

“I do not know how and when the calamities of the Arab World will end. The disaster is that all of this is happening while Egypt is busy … the Saudis will sink in the swamp of Yemen,” Heikal told the newspaper.

Saudi Arabia is currently leading an Arab coalition that is conducting airstrikes in Yemen in support of government loyalists fighting Shia Houthi rebels.

But Heikal compared the intervention negatively to Nasser’s support for the liberation movement against British rule in Yemen in the 1960s.

“When Nasser interfered there, he had no adjacent borders. But the Saudis have constant demands and have taken over two provinces there. Yemen is exhausted and Saudi Arabia will inevitably be exhausted too,” he said.

“Saudi Arabia is in crisis, I do not know how it will end or evolve and how it will affect the ruling system. As for the alternatives, there are no alternatives!”

Commenting on this month’s Iranian nuclear agreement, Heikal said that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states had been too weak to cause any trouble over the deal or complain to the Americans despite their concerns.

“They consider signing the deal a betrayal [but] the UAE has taken a positive attitude for now. We’ll have to wait for their actions, rather than their words, as all of them fear Iran.”

But Anwar Eshki, a former adviser to the Saudi government and currently the director of the Middle East Centre for Strategic and Legal Studies, told Middle East Eye that Heikal was living in the past and had an interest in promoting Egyptian relations with Iran because of business links with the country through his son.

Eshki said Heikal had also been closely associated with US intelligence during the Nasser era, an accusation that was previously lodged by Al Jazeera journalist Ahmed Mansour.

“He is trying to address problems between Egypt and Saudi Arabia by pushing Egypt towards Iran,” said Eshki.

Eshki said Iran had an interest in reaching out to Egypt in order to disrupt the unity that Arab states had shown in resisting Iranian meddling in Yemen.

“Iran’s aim is to destabilise Yemen and other Arab countries, as has happened in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. But the coalition thwarted this so it is using its money to sow divisions in Egypt instead,” he said.

Qasim Durrani, a specialist in Iranian affairs and general manager of the Persian al-Bayan Channel in London, told MEE it was no secret Heikal was a “Nasserist secularist to the core” and that he remained close to decision-makers in Egypt.

But he said that secularists in Arab countries had no fixed principles and Heikal appeared to be concerned by the latest shifts in Saudi policies under King Salman on Egypt, Palestine and other issues, in part because it has made Riyadh more popular among a number of people in the Arab World.

“Iran does not pay attention to the religious affiliation of those it finances on condition that they serve its interests,” said Durrani, citing funds reportedly given to the former Egyptian presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabahy.

Durrani said Iran had also given more than $300 million to Baha Anwar Mohammed, a spokesperson for Egypt’s Shia minority and the director of the Fatimid Egypt Centre for Human Rights, and other Shia organisations.

Heikal’s interview caused waves on social media with the hashtag "Heikal is attacking Saudi Arabia" trending in the Arab World.

The activist Amr Jamil said: “Heikal is one of the most famous liars the world ... he is who made the false leadership of Abdul Nasser and made him the champion in the defeat of 1967 ... senile old man.”

Egyptian lawyer Khaled Abu Bakr tweeted: “Heikal's talk about Saudi Arabia represents the raw material for political dementia, and our brothers in Saudi Arabia have endured a lot of this dementia.”

Palestinian political analyst Yasser al-Zaatrh said: “Heikal's interview was an attack on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf and a surplus of praise for Iran and Nasrallah ... this is the mind of al-Sisi's political system.”

And Amr Abdel-Hadi, a founding member of the Dammer Front, wrote: “Yesterday, Dahi Khalfan the godfather of Zayed attacked and threatened King Salman while today Heikal, the godfather of al-Sisi, attacked and threatened King Salman. Stay tuned for Iran-Sisi cooperation against the Gulf.”