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Another big Friday: can Mubarak hang on?

President Mubarak didn’t step down this evening, as I confess I expected (along with almost everyone in Tahrir square as well as CIA Director Panetta), but his speech was a clear indication of how little he understands what is going on. He is still a goner, if only because he is so out of touch.

What he apparently did do is formally transfer all the powers constitutionally permitted to Vice President Omar Suleiman (the exceptions are dissolution of parliament, dismissal of the government and proposing constitutional amendments).  That will satisfy virtually no one in Tahrir square, where Suleiman is no more popular than Mubarak. The constitutional route the regime has taken will drive the protesters ever more definitively to choose an extra-constitutional path, one they would like to see guaranteed by the Army.

Tomorrow is Friday, the big day for demonstrating in Egypt.  The demonstrators had already succeeded earlier today in moving out of Tahrir square and blocking parliament.  Tomorrow they may head for the presidential palace, unless they get clever and decide to head for someplace else.

The Army’s position is highly ambiguous:

Based on the responsibility of the Armed Forces, and its commitment to protect the people, and to oversee their interests and security, and with a view to the safety of the nation and the citizenry, and of the achievements and properties of the great people of Egypt, and in affirmation and support for the legitimate demands of the people, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces convened today, 10 February 2011, to consider developments to date, and decided to remain in continuous session to consider what procedures and measures that may be taken to protect the nation, and the achievements and aspirations of the great people of Egypt.

Is this an auto-coup, an Army takeover in support of the regime? That might go along with the stealth crackdown that seemed to be growing even before today’s fiasco.  Journalists and organizers were finding themselves detained and harshly treated.  Neither the regime nor the protesters show signs of cracking.  Or is the Army reluctant to act against the demonstrators, as many in Tahrir square seem to believe?

I would still expect more crackdown, along with more protests, but with a likelihood that the Army will get fed up and go over to the demonstrators if asked to fire on the crowd.

There is no guarantee that this will end well, and a lot of indications that the regime is determined to make it end badly.  The initiative is now with the demonstrators:  they need to maintain their momentum, to stick with nonviolence, to convince the Army that it will do better without Mubarak than with him, and to prepare for negotiations.

Washington at this point will gain little from shifting back to support for Mubarak, who will have seen President Obama’s remarks this afternoon as an attempt to force Egypt’s transition to the next stage.  I’d suggest putting all the chips on democracy.  Stability is not likely to come for some time yet.

Can Mubarak survive?  He clearly intends to, even if in a weakened condition, and was at pains to assure the public in comforting thones this evening that he would be watching daily events closely.  I suppose anything is possible in this wild world, but I would also put my personal chips on the protesters.  If they don’t succeed tomorrow, they look determined enough to come back for more.

He’s a goner, but nothing else is clear yet

Mubarak’s status is uncertain for the moment, but he is certainly out of power.  The Egyptian Army has apparently taken over, welcomed by the protesters.  They had wanted Mubarak out.  They welcome the Army  because it suggests a non-constitutional route for the immediate future–one that need not pay heed to the constitutional succession or the highly restrictive provisions controlling new elections. It is not yet clear whether they have really gotten their way.

Egypt is important to the U.S., but it is certainly going to be a different Egypt:  maybe one in the hands of the army, maybe one in the hands of the demonstrators, maybe some hybrid.  Short-term, U.S. interests might fare better in the hands of the army, but long-term Egypt will find its way to a more democratic regime, one way or the other.  It would be a mistake to get on the wrong side of that historical wave.  President Obama has already made it clear he welcomes what is coming, though the Americans still seem quite uncertain what precisely that is.

Can the peace with Israel be maintained?  Let’s remember that it has long been considered a “cold” peace, one that would avoid war but lacked the flow of people, goods, services and understanding that makes for a warm peace.  It could of course get colder, and likely will if the Muslim Brotherhood wins a strong position in Egypt that strengthens pro-Palestinian sentiment in Cairo.  But it is hard to picture what Egypt stands to gain from anything more belligerent than some strong words about mistreatment of people in Gaza.  Israel occupies no Egyptian territory, and it will not be in Egypt’s interest to help Hamas–a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate–with more than rhetoric and humanitarian relief.

A bit stronger Palestinian voice is in any event necessary to getting a Mideast peace agreement–that is the unequivocal lesson anyone can see written in the Palestinian papers, which document an Israel ready to reject even the most forthcoming of Palestinian offers.

The question of the moment is who is really in control of Egypt?  Will the Army shove Omar Suleiman aside, or will he remain in power?  If so, he’ll insist on an end to the demonstrations.  That would not satisfy the protesters and create real strains between them and the army.  Stay tuned.  The outcome is still unclear, even if it is moving in the direction of the protesters.

Surprise, we’re back!

Nothing I could think of illustrates the background to yesterday’s surprise return of demonstrators en masse better than these two interviews. Here is Wael Ghonim, Google exec and protest promoter/organizer, reacting yesterday to an anchor’s showing of photos of those who died in the demonstrations:

And here is Vice President Omar Suleiman two days earlier, accusing the protesters of being under foreign influence and shilling for religion (but caveat emptor: ABC has disabled the embed code, so clicking here will take you to the Youtube website):

Egyptians made their preference known with the appearance in Tahir square of the biggest crowd yet, one that revived the protests and the calls for President Mubarak to step down. Leaderless no more, the dramatic support for Ghonim will slow Suleiman’s effort to steer the negotiations in a direction that leaves the regime largely intact. So, too, will the spread of labor unrest, a clear sign of the broadening base of the protests in Egypt (as it has been in other conflicts of this sort).

Even cold-hearted Washington has been moved by this contrast. The last few days the Obama Administration was tilting towards an orderly transition, yesterday they were back on a quick and decisive one. Their vacillations are understandable–American administrations don’t often risk their vital interests in Middle East peace and the fight against terrorism by betting on scruffy young people–but there is just as much risk in betting on Mubarak, who in any event will not be around for long, or on Suleiman, who will do his best to maintain an autocratic regime to which he has devoted his entire life.  This point is well and forecefully made in Tom Gjelten’s piece this morning on NPR.

It is hard to keep protests going against a regime as wily and survival-focused as this one–yesterday it was busy raising public sector salaries, among other things, to try to calm the populace. But nothing has happened so far that guarantees that the movement towards democracy is irreversible. The protesters will have to keep it up a while longer.

Is Obama selling out the protesters?

Ross Douthat in the NY Times is full of praise for President Obama’s caution and realpolitik with respect to Egypt:

Obama’s response to the Egyptian crisis has crystallized his entire foreign policy vision…it’s clear that the administration’s real goal has been to dispense with Mubarak while keeping the dictator’s military subordinates very much in charge. If the Obama White House has its way, any opening to democracy will be carefully stage-managed by an insider like Omar Suleiman, the former general and Egyptian intelligence chief who’s best known in Washington for his cooperation with the C.I.A.’s rendition program. This isn’t softheaded peacenik dithering. It’s cold-blooded realpolitik.

Or is it just a mistake?

The president has been remarkably unclear in the last day or two about where Egypt should be going. Democracy talk is out again.  I am with him all the way if he wants to suggest that Egyptians should decide their own fate, but when he says Cairo can’t go back where it came from he is suggesting something else: that as long as it doesn’t go all the way back to a Mubarak-style autocracy, the U.S. may be prepared to accept or help stabilize the outcome.

That is a message Omar Suleiman no doubt enjoys hearing, as he clearly has no intention of taking Egypt much more than a meter or two down the path of “reform.”  And it may be a message welcome to some in Congress.  But do we really think that Egyptians will accept a revolution that gives power to the man President Mubarak might have given power to even in the absence of the street protests?  It may be realist, but is it realistic?

Of course behind this “realism” lies fear:  in particular of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Reuel Gerecht, also in the NY Times today, clarifies why fear of the Brotherhood coming to power is overblown, even if the organization itself continues to be odious.  In fact, he argues that bringing it into a broad democratic tent might be the best thing that could happen to defuse and even reverse radicalization among Sunnis. An analogous experiment is underway with Moqtada al Sadr’s Shia political forces in Iraq, so far without any great detriment to the U.S.

My hope is that President Obama is somewhat less realist than Douthat thinks, and somewhat more pragmatic about the need to ensure that he is not seen as selling out the protesters.  If Omar Suleiman is able to restore autocratic “stability” to Egypt, and if President Obama is perceived as having helped him do it, the next protests will not be as benign towards the United States as those of the last ten days.

PS: This is a lot better than the Black-eyed Peas half-time show: