Hosni Mubarak is an increasingly crotchety 81 year-old.  The Egyptian President has weathered sufficient criticism to break a man of less stern stuff.

But as the years pass by the President’s patience withers.  As befits a dictator, there is less and less room for voices, both inside and outside of Egypt, which fail to harmonize with the regime’s agenda.

Note President Mubarak’s strident reaction to recent Hamas criticism of Egypt’s construction of underground fences which block the maze of smugglers’ tunnels connecting Egypt with the Gaza.  Tunnels which some say are a lifeline of food and medicine, and which others say are a pipeline for weapons.

The works and reinforcements on our eastern border are a matter of Egyptian sovereignty. We do not accept a debate on the issue with anyone.  It is the right of the Egyptian state, and even its duty, its responsibility.  It is the right of every state to control and protect its border.

For Mubarak to publicly engage in verbal sparring with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal is to redefine his relationship with the Arab world.  This is not his first criticism of Hamas… the Egyptian government has suggested Hamas is making a mistake in refusing to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority.

Hamas now says no talks with Israel about exchanging prisoners.  And this probably means no new peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.  The U.S.  State Department’s misguided but predictable belief that Mubarak could somehow engineer Middle East peace talks if we started writing him more checks has been discredited.

Back along the frontier, American DEA agents point Egyptian crews to tunnels which need blockading.  Laborers drive sheets of steel down into the hard soil.  The blockade sinks about sixty feet below the surface.  Smugglers react as expected, boasting they remain open for business and will simply dig deeper.

But behind this bravado come reminders that smuggling is not a carefree and cavalier craft.  Arms smuggler Mahmoud al-Mabhou, who uses the Gaza tunnels almost to the extent New Jersey Transit uses the Lincoln Tunnel, turned up dead in a Dubai hotel room a few weeks ago.

All of which leaves Hosni Mubarak unable to deliver much of anything diplomatically substantive to his American paymasters.  No wonder the Egyptian President is irritable.

The prospects of losing some of his billion and a half American dollars in foreign aid every year, the increasingly awkward relationship with the Palestinians and others in the Middle East, and the ever- growing disgust of his own people are not conducive to placid days in the Presidential Palace.

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