Most observers and analysts are still marking the events in Egypt as a victory for protestors, and declaring the path now clear for a peaceful transition to democratic government.
But as the situation turns increasingly tense, and occasionally ugly, it's not surprising that there are darker interpretations emerging.
Robert Springborg, Professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in the US, has the darkest conclusion of all: the protestors have already lost their battle for democracy.
Paradoxically the popular uprising has even ensured that the presidential succession will not only be engineered by the military, but that an officer will succeed Mubarak.
Thus, he says, whatever follows now will not be democracy, but business as usual.
The military will now enter into negotiations with opposition elements that it chooses. The real opposition will initially be ignored, and then possibly rounded up.
It's a sobering analysis, and worth reading in full. For now, Springborg seems to be in the minority, but as Steve Walt points out, revolutions rarely turn out the way people expect.
TRENDING: White House e-mail blackout
| CNN White House Correspondent Dan Lothian |
WASHINGTON (CNN) –The White House learned an important lesson Thursday: the most powerful place in the world is not immune to some of the technical glitches that drive most Americans crazy.
Shortly before 8 a.m. the unclassified e-mail system that top advisers and the president himself rely on to communicate with each other went dark.
Reporters left hanging by unanswered e-mails were told of the blackout by a press assistant who said, "If you need to get in touch with anyone, you have to go up and see them because e-mail is down."
Reporters left hanging by unanswered e-mails were told of the blackout by a press assistant who said, "If you need to get in touch with anyone, you have to go up and see them because e-mail is down."
At 11:54, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer made a formal announcement via Twitter.
"FYI: WH unclassified e-mail went down shortly before 8 AM.' he tweeted. "Verizon is working to solve the problem. Pool reports will be avail in press office."
Not long after that an overhead intercom system sounded out a familiar announcement to those who worked in the White House during the dark ages. Pool reports, normally sent around electronically, were available on paper.
That's how it went for several hours. The podium where spokesman Robert Gibbs normally stands during his briefings was carpeted with pool reports and a transcript of an earlier gaggle by Gibbs aboard Air Force One.
By then Gibbs was standing in State College, Pennsylvania where the president was holding an event on jobs and innovation. He talked about "investing in cutting-edge research and technology," while his own technology-e-mail to his little BlackBerry- was failing him.
White House officials said classified communications were not affected. A senior White House aide said the issue was "Not a huge deal. Kind of a quiet change of pace."
Tech workers were finally able to get the White House e-mail running by mid-afternoon.
Ahhh, the evidence flashed on computer screens at 3:03 p.m. It was a transcript of remarks the president made at the National Prayer Breakfast early in the morning.
Perhaps a sign that there is power in prayer
.
.
The Obama administration is discussing with Egyptian officials a proposal for President Hosni Mubarak to resign immediately, turning over power to a transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military, administration officials and Arab diplomats said Thursday.
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
President Barack Obama on Thursday. The White House is in discussions to find a way out of the crisis in Cairo.
Even though Mr. Mubarak has balked, so far, at leaving now, officials from both governments are continuing talks about a plan in which Mr. Suleiman, backed by Lt. Gen. Sami Enan, chief of the Egyptian armed forces, and Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, the defense minister, would immediately begin a process of constitutional reform.
The proposal also calls for the transitional government to invite members from a broad range of opposition groups, including the banned Muslim Brotherhood, to begin work to open up the country’s electoral system in an effort to bring about free and fair elections in September, the officials said.
Senior administration officials said that the proposal was one of several options under discussion with high-level Egyptian officials around Mr. Mubarak in an effort to persuade the president to step down now.
They cautioned that the outcome depended on several factors, not least Egypt’s own constitutional protocols and the mood of the protesters on the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian cities.
Some officials said there was not yet any indication that either Mr. Suleiman or the Egyptian military was willing to abandon Mr. Mubarak.
Even as the Obama administration is coalescing around a Mubarak-must-go-now posture in private conversations with Egyptian officials, Mr. Mubarak himself remains determined to stay until the election in September, American and Egyptian officials said. His backers forcibly pushed back on Thursday against what they viewed as American interference in Egypt’s internal affairs.
“What they’re asking cannot be done,” one senior Egyptian official said, citing clauses in the Egyptian Constitution that bar the vice president from assuming power. Under the Constitution, the speaker of Parliament would succeed the president. “That’s my technical answer,” the official added. “My political answer is they should mind their own business.”
Mr. Mubarak’s insistence on staying will again be tested by large street protests on Friday, which the demonstrators are calling his “day of departure,” when they plan to march on the presidential palace. The military’s pledge not to fire on the Egyptian people will be tested as well.
The discussions about finding a way out of the crisis in Cairo take place as new questions are being raised about whether American intelligence agencies, after the collapse of the Tunisian government, adequately warned the White House and top lawmakers about the prospects of an uprising in Egypt.
During a Senate hearing on Thursday, both Democrats and Republicans pressed a seniorCentral Intelligence Agency official about when the C.I.A. and other agencies notifiedPresident Obama of the looming crisis, and whether intelligence officers even monitored social networking sites and Internet forums to gauge popular sentiment in Egypt.
“At some point it had to have been obvious that there was going to be a huge demonstration,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who is chairwoman of the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence.
She said that intelligence agencies never sent a notice to her committee about the growing uprising in Egypt, as is customary in the case of significant global events.
Stephanie O’Sullivan, the C.I.A. official, responded that the agency had been tracking instability in Egypt for some time and had concluded that the government in Cairo was in an “untenable” situation. But, Ms. O’Sullivan said, “we didn’t know what the triggering mechanism would be.”
Because of the fervor now unleashed in Egypt, one Obama administration official said, Mr. Mubarak’s close aides expressed concern that they were not convinced that Mr. Mubarak’s resignation would satisfy the protesters.
In an interview with Christiane Amanpour of ABC News, Mr. Mubarak said that he was “fed up” with being president but that he could not step down for fear of sowing chaos in the country.
“The worry on Mubarak’s part is that if he says yes to this, there will be more demands,” said Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. “And since he’s not dealing with a legal entity, but a mob, how does he know there won’t be more demands tomorrow?”
A number of high-level American officials have reached out to the Egyptians in recent days. While administration officials would not offer details of the alternatives that were being discussed, they made it clear that their preferred outcome would be for Mr. Suleiman to take power as a transitional figure.
An Egyptian woman gives her graphic firsthand account of the violence unleashed by Mubarak's regime. Jillian York supplies us with a partial transcript of Mona Seif's horrifying ordeal.
Rachel Maddow used some of the interview from Al Jazeera last night.
I was just listening to Al Jazeera and heard a familiar voice: @monasosh aka Mona Seif, sister of my friend Alaa Abd El Fattah; though I’ve never met her, I know her voice from a@Speak2Tweet message sent just two days ago, in which she sounded optimistic. Now, on Al Jazeera, you can hear the tears and desperation through her voice. I only managed to jot down a few pieces of what she said, but here it is:===================================
If everyone is so concerned, why is Mubarak still there and we’re losing people every minute?
When asked, “What would you like to say to the world?”
We are not leaving this place. There are only two options for the world: Either they stick to mubarak and his regime and we lose thousands of people in this square and it goes from Liberation Square to Massacre Square. Or, they say no to mubarak’s regime and give people here a chance at a real life.
She was then asked who was in the crowds. Her response:
A lot of them are teenage kids, very few of them are older than 25. It’s astonishing but it really is sad because we know this can be avoided and they don’t have to waste their lives.
The presenter then asked if she was reassured by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s earlier words that the violence from the pro-Mubarak side was shocking. Mona responded:
Not really, this is the same hilary clinton who a week ago said mubarak’s country is stable. What would be assuring is for me to hear that Mubarak is about to give an urgent speech and say he is leaving.
Rachel Maddow used some of the interview from Al Jazeera last night.
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