Sadat’s widow: ‘I hate US policies’

The widow of former Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat launched a scathing attack on US foreign policy in the Middle East, accusing Washington of trying to “fragment” countries in the region, including Egypt.

Jehan Sadat made the accusations during a television interview in February that was transcribed and posted on the Internet Wednesday by MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute).

During the discussion Sadat praised Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the current Egyptian presidential candidate and former army chief who ousted former president Mohammad Morsi, for rescuing Egypt from nefarious US plans.

“The truth is that el-Sissi saved Egypt,” she said during the interview, with Egypt’s MBC. “In fact not just Egypt, he saved all the Arab countries. The US was about to fragment Egypt, just like it fragmented Iraq and Syria and struck a blow against the Iraqi army and the Syrian army, and the other Arab armies of of Yemen, of Libya, and so on.”

“The Egyptian army was next because it was the only one remaining,” she continued. “The (US) was about to fragment it, and Egypt as a whole. Obviously it had its eyes set on the Arab Gulf and Saudi Arabia, which would have been next.”

When the interviewer asked the 80-year-old Sadat her motives for no longer lecturing at American universities — she has been a visiting professor at several — she responded that, among other things, it was because she could no longer abide US dogma.

“I hate the US policies,” she said, but added, “The American people is a good people.”

Sadat spoke of her dismay at what she feels was the US’s turning on Egypt after years of friendship. “I am sick and tired of US policy,” she said. “I loathe it.”

The blame for the developments lie with President Barack Obama’s administration, she noted, and not the American people who, she repeated, are “great.”

“I can’t believe that Obama would do what he is doing,” she said. “It’s not just Obama, it’s a plot that was hatched years ago, but Obama is the one implementing it.”

According to the website of the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, Jehan Sadat was an Associate Resident Scholar at the university.

In 1979, Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David peace accords with Israel on the White House lawn. The ceremony, featuring an iconic three-way handshake between Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and US President Jimmy Carter, marked Israel’s first peace treaty with an Arab state..