"Exultation in Egypt, and a question: What’s next?; In a stunning turnabout, Mubarak abruptly resigns and leaves Cairo" by David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times / February 12, 2011
CAIRO — The transfer of power leaves the Egyptian military in charge of this nation of some 80 million. The military had signaled its takeover with a communiqué that appeared to declare its solidarity with the protesters.
Read over state television by an army spokesman, the communiqué declared that the military would ensure the amendment of the constitution to “conduct free and fair presidential elections.’’
“The armed forces are committed to sponsor the legitimate demands of the people,’’ the statement declared, and it promised to ensure the fulfillment of its promises “within defined time frames’’ until authority can pass to a “free democratic community that the people aspire to.’’
Egyptians ignored the communiqué until Mubarak’s resignation was announced. Then they hugged, kissed, and cheered the soldiers, lifting children on tanks to get their pictures taken. “The people and the army are one hand,’’ they chanted.
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An Egyptian antigovernment protester danced with a soldier during celebrations at Tahrir Square in Cairo. (Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images)."What the AmeriKan media isn't telling you is the soldiers were going to turn the tank turrets on the commanders if they were ordered to shoot protesters.
Whether the military will subordinate itself to a civilian democracy or install a new military dictator will be impossible to know for months. Military leaders will inevitably face pressure to deliver the genuine transition that protesters did not trust Mubarak to give them.
Yet it may also seek to protect the enormous political and economic privileges it accumulated during Mubarak’s reign. And the army has been infused for years with the notion that Egypt’s survival depends on fighting threats, real and imagined, from foreign enemies, Islamists, Iran, and the frustrations of its people.
That SOUNDS JUST like their NEIGHBOR to EAST, doesn't it?
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"Moment of promise and trepidation" by Michael Levenson, Globe Staff / February 12, 2011
Even the experts don’t know what’s going to happen next. Will the military consolidate control or will a new civilian leader emerge? What role will the Muslim Brotherhood opposition group play? And does that group pose a threat to the West?
As prodemocracy protesters brought down President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt yesterday, specialists who study the region said the moment is fraught with peril and with possibility....
R. Nicholas Burns, a career diplomat and former US ambassador to NATO who teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, said Egypt, a regional power, has long served key US interests. It has maintained a peace with Israel. It has helped fight violent extremists. And it has helped block and contain Iran, he said.
“If, as a result of the coming transition, we are not able to protect those interests, that would be a grave blow to American foreign interests,’’ Burns said.
Isn't it great that the Globe turns to a Bush Administration Neo-Con as a specialist?
Still, like many, he was hopeful that the uprising would usher in a more democratic Egypt for the first time since military leaders seized control in the revolution of 1952.
“I never thought this day would come,’’ said Burns, who was a foreign service officer in Cairo in the 1980s. “I never thought the Egyptian people would organize themselves and overthrow the government. And they did it.’’
And he's the expert "specialist?"
The specialists generally agreed that Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Prize laureate and former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, might play a role in the transition, along with Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League and a former foreign minister in Egypt.
But they said it is not clear either man has enough popular support to become the next leader of Egypt...
The specialists said it is not clear if the military can be trusted as a force for democracy after ruling Egypt with an iron hand. But the military appeared to abandon Mubarak during the uprising, and many soldiers were seen shaking hands and making other gestures of solidarity with protesters.
Specialists said they will be watching to see if the military invites reformers into a transitional government or installs its generals in positions of power.
“It’s very easy now to get caught up in the enthusiasm, and if I were in Tahrir Square now, I would certainly be enthusiastic,’’ said Shai Feldman, chair of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. “But....’’
That's the next expert the Zionist War Daily cites?
Opinions differed on the threat to the West posed by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Ashraf Hegazy, the son of an Egyptian diplomat and executive director of the Kennedy School’s Dubai Initiative, said the group’s clout has been exaggerated, and the Muslim Brotherhood may change if it can participate in government.
“Historically, when they have been allowed to participate in the political sphere, they have become more and more moderate,’’ he said. “And when they were excluded from the political sphere, they become more extreme.’’
But Feldman said there is reason for the United States and its allies to be concerned about the group’s extremism. He said the Muslim Brotherhood may be able to take advantage of the power vacuum in Egypt because he said the group is better organized than the country’s other political factions.
“Of course, the Israelis are nervous,’’ Feldman said. “Are they exaggerated in their nervousness? Probably.’’
The specialists agreed that the uprising in Egypt would encourage similar democratic movements in other Arab regimes, perhaps in Yemen, Algeria, and Sudan.
“I find it very hard to believe that this phenomenal surge of reform is going to stop in Egypt, because it’s Egypt — it’s the heart and soul of politics and culture in the Arab world,’’ Burns said.
Feldman predicted that other Arab dictators may respond to Mubarak’s ouster by making largely symbolic reforms while moving quickly to quash any signs of unrest.
“You can bet your life they’ve put their security services on the highest form of alert,’’ Feldman said.
The American government must be careful not to appear to be propping up the next government, or that government will lose its legitimacy, the specialists said....
Isn't that sad, Americans?
If you are seen as associating with us you are seen as stink.
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Related:
Globe Editorial After jubilation, Egypt must set a fast pace of political reforms
I'm sure that's the best advice going and the solution to all the problems.
"Egypt’s military assures allies; Pledges to support civilian rule, honor treaty with Israel" by Kareem Fahim, New York Times / February 13, 2011
CAIRO — Exultant and exhausted opposition leaders claimed their role in the country’s future, pressing the army to lift the country’s emergency law and release political prisoners and saying they would present their vision for the government. And they vowed to return to Tahrir Square to honor those who had died in the 18-day uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak after nearly 30 years of authoritarian rule.
In an announcement broadcast on state television, an army spokesman said Egypt would continue to abide by all of its international and regional treaties and the current civilian leadership would manage the country’s affairs until the formation of a new government. But he did not discuss a timetable for any transfer of power, and it was unclear how and when talks with opposition figures would take place....
In Tahrir, or Liberation, Square, some members of the movement that toppled Mubarak vowed to continue their protests, saying that all their demands had not yet been met.
But my TV news has shifted away from Egypt and is now back to peddling the same crap (click).
A long list included an end to the emergency law that allows detention without charges, the dissolution of the Parliament, seen as illegitimate, and for some of the protesters, the prosecution of Mubarak.
U.S. really can't criticize after Gitmo and the torture.
Oh, right, AmeriKa supported that s*** for 30 years, and even sent rendered suspects to Egypt for torture.
About 50 protesters stood in the square yesterday morning as the military removed barricades and concertina wire on the periphery. But the uprising’s leading organizers, speaking at a news conference in central Cairo, asked protesters to leave the square.
The group, the Coalition of the Youth of the Revolution, which includes members of the April 6 Youth Movement, the Muslim Brotherhood Youth and young supporters of Mohamed ElBaradei, a prominent opposition figure, said it had not yet talked with the military and that today it would lay out its road map for a transitional government.
The coalition said Ahmed Zewail, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, and other respected figures would work as intermediaries between the youth group and the military.
“The power of the people changed the regime,’’ said Gehan Shaaban, a group spokeswoman. “But we shouldn’t trust the army. We should trust ourselves, the people of Egypt.’’
The Egyptians are really giving us Americans a lot of pointers.
Again, there were signs that not all the protesters were willing to give up. During the news conference, a protester yelled: “We should all head to Tahrir and stay there, until we ourselves are sure that everything is going as planned! The government of Ahmed Shafiq has to go!’’ Shafiq is the prime minister. The woman’s shouts brought the news conference to a close.
As the protesters and opposition groups prepared an agenda, they sought clues about exactly whom they were negotiating with. On Friday, Vice President Omar Suleiman said Mubarak had authorized the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to manage the state’s affairs, marking the transition from civilian to military rule.
Suleiman, a former general who became Egypt’s foreign intelligence chief, straddled the two worlds. But Hosam Sowilam, a retired general, said Suleiman no longer played a leadership role. “Omar Suleiman finished his time,’’ he said. “He’s 74 years old.’’ Others were not so quick to dismiss Suleiman, a close ally of Mubarak who was mentioned as his successor.
In interviews, protest leaders said they assumed that the defense minister, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, 75, who was considered a loyalist of Mubarak, was now the country’s de facto leader. Yesterday morning, his convoy tried to drive to Tahrir Square, according to a paratrooper stationed there. But he did not leave his car.
Security officials said the recently appointed interior minister, Mahmoud Wagdy, visited units of the department’s feared security services yesterday in the hope of returning police officers to work. The officers vanished from Egypt’s streets on Jan. 29.
That security force, including plainclothes officers widely accused of abuse, are loathed by the protesters, who have demanded police reform to end brutality and, in particular, torture in police stations.
Prosecutors are weighing charges against the previous interior minister, Habib al-Adly, who seemed to ignore or encourage police abuses.
On state television, which for weeks depicted the protesters as a violent mob of foreigners, an anchor spoke of the “youth revolution.’’
In Tahrir Square, thousand of volunteers who brought their own brooms or cleaning supplies, swept streets and scrubbed graffiti from buildings. On the streets around the square, the celebrations from the night before continued.
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