Mubarak's legacy – and his downfall: A stale stability (The Christian Science Monitor)

Cairo – After nearly 30 years at the helm of the economic and cultural center of the Arab world, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak relinquished his post in the face of an unprecedented and unrelenting pro-democracy movement.

Mr. Mubarak's departure yesterday changes not only the face of Egypt but also that of the Middle East, where in 1981 he took command of one of the region's most powerful countries.

He was the longest-ruling Egyptian leader since Mohamed Ali Pasha, the 19th-century Ottoman viceroy who is considered the founder of modern Egypt.

IN PICTURES: Exclusive Monitor photos of Egypt's turmoil

Unlike his iconic predecessors and fellow generals Anwar Sadat and Gamal Abdel Nasser, who left clear imprints on the nation and died in office, Mubarak will probably be remembered more for unfulfilled expectations and wasted opportunity.

"With Nasser and Sadat, people remember what they did do. Concerning Mubarak, I think the people will remember ... what he might have done, but did not," said analyst Amr al-Shobaki of Cairo's Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, speaking before Mubarak's fall.

After the thundering Arab nationalist rhetoric of Nasser, and the historic peace made with Israel by Sadat, Mubarak turned Egypt politically inward. He oversaw a process of liberal economic reform that benefited a small business and military elite at the cost of widening social gaps, even as the industrial base of Egypt eroded under his watch from its glory years in the 1950s.

Rampant inflation in recent years made it harder for millions to feed their families, and the promises by Mubarak and his investment banker son, Gamal, that economic liberalization would eventually lift Egyptians out of poverty were increasingly derided as a cruel joke by a citizenry watching their country's international standing and their own economic prospects decline.

International sponsors like the US and the World Bank may have been pleased with Mubarak's course, but his people were not.

Though many factors contributed to the social revolution that swept Mubarak away – the spread of communications technologies like the Internet, a youth bulge that had never known any ruler but him, the stunning evidence from Tunisia that a popular uprising could succeed – his economic failures were a crucial component.

Mubarak's rise Mubarak was born to a rural family in the Nile Delta and came up through the military, eventually becoming head of the Air Force. He was appointed vice president in 1975, and took power in 1981 when Sadat was assassinated by Islamist militants who were angered by the Camp David peace accords with Israel.

He kept a tight hold on power for the next three decade thanks to the infamous emergency law implemented after Sadat's murder. He and Omar Suleiman, the retired general and spy chief, ruthlessly and successfully pursued Islamist militants and squeezed out independent political organizations. During his reign, the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) came to dominate parliament thanks to rigged elections and repressive political laws.

Though he and his aides promised a political opening for more than a decade, his actions were something else again. The last parliamentary election on his watch, in November 2010, was widely viewed as the most rigged of his time in office, returning more than 95 percent of the seats to the NDP.

Mubarak's singular achievement was a stability – some would say stagnation – that kept Egypt out of war, at peace with Israel, and the beneficiary of billions of dollars in American largesse. The tanks on the streets of Cairo today and the best planes in the Air Force were largely underwritten by the American taxpayer.

He tended close US ties and the Camp David accords, maintaining a cold peace with Israel that was simultaneously deeply unpopular with the Egyptian public and appreciated. To the average Egyptian, Israel is a symbol of oppression, but they also appreciated that their sons were no longer being asked to die in wars with their small and powerful neighbor.

Still, Mubarak oversaw Egypt's steady decline in regional relevance from the glory years of Nasser. While he led the country back into the Arab League in 1989 (Egypt's membership was suspended after Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem in 1979), it rejoined as one member among many, never to regain its past influence. Rising regional powers less reliant on the West, more aligned with popular opinion, and having the ambition to pursue bold positions, emerged.

Economic growth but at a costTo be sure, Mubarak presided over economic reforms that strengthened Egypt’s economy and there have been real benefits for Egyptian citizens. Many economic and social indicators improved. As the population has nearly doubled since 1981 to 83 million, per capita gross domestic product has increased, life expectancy is up, infant mortality has been cut in half, and the literacy rate is now 70 percent.

But though Egypt’s economy grew, his effort to privatize state-controlled industry sparked an outcry among workers who were accustomed to a dependable living from the state and now complain of unpaid wages and job cuts.

As the 18-day uprising that began on Jan. 25 spread, wildcat strikes broke out at military-owned companies, at state-owned factories in the delta, and along the economically crucial Suez Canal. Egyptian laborers have been in a state of simmering upheaval since 2006, and probably played as much of a role in his downfall as the democracy protesters who massed in Tahrir Square in Cairo.

While some have done well for themselves under Mubarak’s regime, income inequality has soared since he took power, as has inflation. Twenty percent of the population lives in poverty, and another 20 percent barely above it. Unemployment is high.

“According to most indicators people’s living have gotten better, but not nearly as much as people would like,” says Nathan Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. “Even if the economic indicators are up, people’s daily lives are much more of a struggle.”

Foreign friendsIn the West, Mubarak will be remembered as a steady, dependable US ally. He successfully dealt with a wave of terrorism in the 1990s, reliably repressed the peaceful Muslim Brotherhood at home, and assisted Western efforts to pursue Al Qaeda. He and Suleiman participated in the US extraordinary rendition program after Sept. 11, in which terrorist suspects were transferred to countries like Egypt with a reputation for harsher interrogation methods – human rights activists say torture – than America does.

But those positions did not win him favor domestically. Mubarak was not a particularly popular leader, and built an impressive police, security, and intelligence empire that controlled the population through fear and a constant state of emergency that gave him sweeping powers.

Samer Shehata, professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University, says Mubarak differed from his predecessors in that he did not have fervent supporters. "Nasser and Sadat got people emotional. Even among his [Mubarak's] supporters, he doesn't attract very much emotion," he says. "He [was not] a loved leader."

Abroad, Nasser was leader of the Pan-Arab movement, and Sadat shared a Nobel prize for making peace with Israel. But Mubarak never made any significant moves on the international stage. Though Egypt was once a key regional mediator, in recent years Mubarak was unable to negotiate even Palestinian reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.

It is just one more thing Mubarak could have accomplished, but didn't, say analysts. "He could have done a lot of things," says Dr. Shobaki. "He stayed in power for 30 years in a stable period.... Egypt was not occupied, Egypt did not go to war with Israel. And he did nothing."

IN PICTURES: Exclusive Monitor photos of Egypt's turmoil

View the original article here

Mubarak's legacy – and his downfall: A stale stability (The Christian Science Monitor)

Cairo – After nearly 30 years at the helm of the economic and cultural center of the Arab world, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak relinquished his post in the face of an unprecedented and unrelenting pro-democracy movement.

Mr. Mubarak's departure yesterday changes not only the face of Egypt but also that of the Middle East, where in 1981 he took command of one of the region's most powerful countries.

He was the longest-ruling Egyptian leader since Mohamed Ali Pasha, the 19th-century Ottoman viceroy who is considered the founder of modern Egypt.

IN PICTURES: Exclusive Monitor photos of Egypt's turmoil

Unlike his iconic predecessors and fellow generals Anwar Sadat and Gamal Abdel Nasser, who left clear imprints on the nation and died in office, Mubarak will probably be remembered more for unfulfilled expectations and wasted opportunity.

"With Nasser and Sadat, people remember what they did do. Concerning Mubarak, I think the people will remember ... what he might have done, but did not," said analyst Amr al-Shobaki of Cairo's Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, speaking before Mubarak's fall.

After the thundering Arab nationalist rhetoric of Nasser, and the historic peace made with Israel by Sadat, Mubarak turned Egypt politically inward. He oversaw a process of liberal economic reform that benefited a small business and military elite at the cost of widening social gaps, even as the industrial base of Egypt eroded under his watch from its glory years in the 1950s.

Rampant inflation in recent years made it harder for millions to feed their families, and the promises by Mubarak and his investment banker son, Gamal, that economic liberalization would eventually lift Egyptians out of poverty were increasingly derided as a cruel joke by a citizenry watching their country's international standing and their own economic prospects decline.

International sponsors like the US and the World Bank may have been pleased with Mubarak's course, but his people were not.

Though many factors contributed to the social revolution that swept Mubarak away – the spread of communications technologies like the Internet, a youth bulge that had never known any ruler but him, the stunning evidence from Tunisia that a popular uprising could succeed – his economic failures were a crucial component.

Mubarak's rise Mubarak was born to a rural family in the Nile Delta and came up through the military, eventually becoming head of the Air Force. He was appointed vice president in 1975, and took power in 1981 when Sadat was assassinated by Islamist militants who were angered by the Camp David peace accords with Israel.

He kept a tight hold on power for the next three decade thanks to the infamous emergency law implemented after Sadat's murder. He and Omar Suleiman, the retired general and spy chief, ruthlessly and successfully pursued Islamist militants and squeezed out independent political organizations. During his reign, the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) came to dominate parliament thanks to rigged elections and repressive political laws.

Though he and his aides promised a political opening for more than a decade, his actions were something else again. The last parliamentary election on his watch, in November 2010, was widely viewed as the most rigged of his time in office, returning more than 95 percent of the seats to the NDP.

Mubarak's singular achievement was a stability – some would say stagnation – that kept Egypt out of war, at peace with Israel, and the beneficiary of billions of dollars in American largesse. The tanks on the streets of Cairo today and the best planes in the Air Force were largely underwritten by the American taxpayer.

He tended close US ties and the Camp David accords, maintaining a cold peace with Israel that was simultaneously deeply unpopular with the Egyptian public and appreciated. To the average Egyptian, Israel is a symbol of oppression, but they also appreciated that their sons were no longer being asked to die in wars with their small and powerful neighbor.

Still, Mubarak oversaw Egypt's steady decline in regional relevance from the glory years of Nasser. While he led the country back into the Arab League in 1989 (Egypt's membership was suspended after Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem in 1979), it rejoined as one member among many, never to regain its past influence. Rising regional powers less reliant on the West, more aligned with popular opinion, and having the ambition to pursue bold positions, emerged.

Economic growth but at a costTo be sure, Mubarak presided over economic reforms that strengthened Egypt’s economy and there have been real benefits for Egyptian citizens. Many economic and social indicators improved. As the population has nearly doubled since 1981 to 83 million, per capita gross domestic product has increased, life expectancy is up, infant mortality has been cut in half, and the literacy rate is now 70 percent.

But though Egypt’s economy grew, his effort to privatize state-controlled industry sparked an outcry among workers who were accustomed to a dependable living from the state and now complain of unpaid wages and job cuts.

As the 18-day uprising that began on Jan. 25 spread, wildcat strikes broke out at military-owned companies, at state-owned factories in the delta, and along the economically crucial Suez Canal. Egyptian laborers have been in a state of simmering upheaval since 2006, and probably played as much of a role in his downfall as the democracy protesters who massed in Tahrir Square in Cairo.

While some have done well for themselves under Mubarak’s regime, income inequality has soared since he took power, as has inflation. Twenty percent of the population lives in poverty, and another 20 percent barely above it. Unemployment is high.

“According to most indicators people’s living have gotten better, but not nearly as much as people would like,” says Nathan Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. “Even if the economic indicators are up, people’s daily lives are much more of a struggle.”

Foreign friendsIn the West, Mubarak will be remembered as a steady, dependable US ally. He successfully dealt with a wave of terrorism in the 1990s, reliably repressed the peaceful Muslim Brotherhood at home, and assisted Western efforts to pursue Al Qaeda. He and Suleiman participated in the US extraordinary rendition program after Sept. 11, in which terrorist suspects were transferred to countries like Egypt with a reputation for harsher interrogation methods – human rights activists say torture – than America does.

But those positions did not win him favor domestically. Mubarak was not a particularly popular leader, and built an impressive police, security, and intelligence empire that controlled the population through fear and a constant state of emergency that gave him sweeping powers.

Samer Shehata, professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University, says Mubarak differed from his predecessors in that he did not have fervent supporters. "Nasser and Sadat got people emotional. Even among his [Mubarak's] supporters, he doesn't attract very much emotion," he says. "He [was not] a loved leader."

Abroad, Nasser was leader of the Pan-Arab movement, and Sadat shared a Nobel prize for making peace with Israel. But Mubarak never made any significant moves on the international stage. Though Egypt was once a key regional mediator, in recent years Mubarak was unable to negotiate even Palestinian reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.

It is just one more thing Mubarak could have accomplished, but didn't, say analysts. "He could have done a lot of things," says Dr. Shobaki. "He stayed in power for 30 years in a stable period.... Egypt was not occupied, Egypt did not go to war with Israel. And he did nothing."

IN PICTURES: Exclusive Monitor photos of Egypt's turmoil

View the original article here

Mubarak's legacy – and his downfall: A stale stability (The Christian Science Monitor)

Cairo – After nearly 30 years at the helm of the economic and cultural center of the Arab world, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak relinquished his post in the face of an unprecedented and unrelenting pro-democracy movement.

Mr. Mubarak's departure yesterday changes not only the face of Egypt but also that of the Middle East, where in 1981 he took command of one of the region's most powerful countries.

He was the longest-ruling Egyptian leader since Mohamed Ali Pasha, the 19th-century Ottoman viceroy who is considered the founder of modern Egypt.

IN PICTURES: Exclusive Monitor photos of Egypt's turmoil

Unlike his iconic predecessors and fellow generals Anwar Sadat and Gamal Abdel Nasser, who left clear imprints on the nation and died in office, Mubarak will probably be remembered more for unfulfilled expectations and wasted opportunity.

"With Nasser and Sadat, people remember what they did do. Concerning Mubarak, I think the people will remember ... what he might have done, but did not," said analyst Amr al-Shobaki of Cairo's Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, speaking before Mubarak's fall.

After the thundering Arab nationalist rhetoric of Nasser, and the historic peace made with Israel by Sadat, Mubarak turned Egypt politically inward. He oversaw a process of liberal economic reform that benefited a small business and military elite at the cost of widening social gaps, even as the industrial base of Egypt eroded under his watch from its glory years in the 1950s.

Rampant inflation in recent years made it harder for millions to feed their families, and the promises by Mubarak and his investment banker son, Gamal, that economic liberalization would eventually lift Egyptians out of poverty were increasingly derided as a cruel joke by a citizenry watching their country's international standing and their own economic prospects decline.

International sponsors like the US and the World Bank may have been pleased with Mubarak's course, but his people were not.

Though many factors contributed to the social revolution that swept Mubarak away – the spread of communications technologies like the Internet, a youth bulge that had never known any ruler but him, the stunning evidence from Tunisia that a popular uprising could succeed – his economic failures were a crucial component.

Mubarak's rise Mubarak was born to a rural family in the Nile Delta and came up through the military, eventually becoming head of the Air Force. He was appointed vice president in 1975, and took power in 1981 when Sadat was assassinated by Islamist militants who were angered by the Camp David peace accords with Israel.

He kept a tight hold on power for the next three decade thanks to the infamous emergency law implemented after Sadat's murder. He and Omar Suleiman, the retired general and spy chief, ruthlessly and successfully pursued Islamist militants and squeezed out independent political organizations. During his reign, the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) came to dominate parliament thanks to rigged elections and repressive political laws.

Though he and his aides promised a political opening for more than a decade, his actions were something else again. The last parliamentary election on his watch, in November 2010, was widely viewed as the most rigged of his time in office, returning more than 95 percent of the seats to the NDP.

Mubarak's singular achievement was a stability – some would say stagnation – that kept Egypt out of war, at peace with Israel, and the beneficiary of billions of dollars in American largesse. The tanks on the streets of Cairo today and the best planes in the Air Force were largely underwritten by the American taxpayer.

He tended close US ties and the Camp David accords, maintaining a cold peace with Israel that was simultaneously deeply unpopular with the Egyptian public and appreciated. To the average Egyptian, Israel is a symbol of oppression, but they also appreciated that their sons were no longer being asked to die in wars with their small and powerful neighbor.

Still, Mubarak oversaw Egypt's steady decline in regional relevance from the glory years of Nasser. While he led the country back into the Arab League in 1989 (Egypt's membership was suspended after Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem in 1979), it rejoined as one member among many, never to regain its past influence. Rising regional powers less reliant on the West, more aligned with popular opinion, and having the ambition to pursue bold positions, emerged.

Economic growth but at a costTo be sure, Mubarak presided over economic reforms that strengthened Egypt’s economy and there have been real benefits for Egyptian citizens. Many economic and social indicators improved. As the population has nearly doubled since 1981 to 83 million, per capita gross domestic product has increased, life expectancy is up, infant mortality has been cut in half, and the literacy rate is now 70 percent.

But though Egypt’s economy grew, his effort to privatize state-controlled industry sparked an outcry among workers who were accustomed to a dependable living from the state and now complain of unpaid wages and job cuts.

As the 18-day uprising that began on Jan. 25 spread, wildcat strikes broke out at military-owned companies, at state-owned factories in the delta, and along the economically crucial Suez Canal. Egyptian laborers have been in a state of simmering upheaval since 2006, and probably played as much of a role in his downfall as the democracy protesters who massed in Tahrir Square in Cairo.

While some have done well for themselves under Mubarak’s regime, income inequality has soared since he took power, as has inflation. Twenty percent of the population lives in poverty, and another 20 percent barely above it. Unemployment is high.

“According to most indicators people’s living have gotten better, but not nearly as much as people would like,” says Nathan Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. “Even if the economic indicators are up, people’s daily lives are much more of a struggle.”

Foreign friendsIn the West, Mubarak will be remembered as a steady, dependable US ally. He successfully dealt with a wave of terrorism in the 1990s, reliably repressed the peaceful Muslim Brotherhood at home, and assisted Western efforts to pursue Al Qaeda. He and Suleiman participated in the US extraordinary rendition program after Sept. 11, in which terrorist suspects were transferred to countries like Egypt with a reputation for harsher interrogation methods – human rights activists say torture – than America does.

But those positions did not win him favor domestically. Mubarak was not a particularly popular leader, and built an impressive police, security, and intelligence empire that controlled the population through fear and a constant state of emergency that gave him sweeping powers.

Samer Shehata, professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University, says Mubarak differed from his predecessors in that he did not have fervent supporters. "Nasser and Sadat got people emotional. Even among his [Mubarak's] supporters, he doesn't attract very much emotion," he says. "He [was not] a loved leader."

Abroad, Nasser was leader of the Pan-Arab movement, and Sadat shared a Nobel prize for making peace with Israel. But Mubarak never made any significant moves on the international stage. Though Egypt was once a key regional mediator, in recent years Mubarak was unable to negotiate even Palestinian reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.

It is just one more thing Mubarak could have accomplished, but didn't, say analysts. "He could have done a lot of things," says Dr. Shobaki. "He stayed in power for 30 years in a stable period.... Egypt was not occupied, Egypt did not go to war with Israel. And he did nothing."

IN PICTURES: Exclusive Monitor photos of Egypt's turmoil

View the original article here

The Psychology of Mubarak's Resignation (Time.com)

Despots are good at a lot of things - suppressing dissent, muzzling the press, crushing hope, the whole tool kit of talents necessary to cling to power for 30 or 40 years. What they tend to be a little rusty on are their people skills - the ability to understand the motivations of others and act in a way that effectively communicates their own. That interpersonal obtuseness was on breathtaking display on Thursday, when Hosni Mubarak made his last globally televised stand, informing the Egyptian people that, no, he still wasn't going anywhere - before finally giving up and packing it in the next day.

That Mubarak at last did heed the will of his people is a good and sensible thing for him to have done. That it took him so long says a lot about what goes on in the mind of a dictator and how hard it can be to make him see the world the way everyone else does. (See how the U.S. plans to aid democracy in Egypt.)

Disputes between the leader and the led usually flow from the bottom up. There is no happier autocrat than one whose rules are being unquestioningly obeyed and whose authority is being docilely accepted. The problem comes not so much when there are small stirrings of dissent - those can be quickly snuffed - as when there's a large-scale popular uprising.

Biological anthropologist Chris Boehm at the University of Southern California studies the human revolutionary impulse and has been struck in particular by how it plays to a unique tension in the psychology of our species. On the one hand, humans are extremely hierarchical primates, readily picking leaders and assenting to their authority for the larger good of the community. On the other hand, our hunter-gatherer ancestors were a very egalitarian bunch, doing best when the group operated collectively, with dominance asserted only subtly. When one individual - usually a male - began to overreach, he was dealt with swiftly. That impulse - to challenge the bully and take him down - is one that stays with us today, and that we practice with great relish. (See TIME's complete coverage: "The Middle East in Revolt.")

"The revolutionary urge is the universal reaction to power being exerted over us in an illegitimate way," says Jonathan Haidt, a moral psychologist at the University of Virginia, whose own work parallels Boehm's. "It's absolutely thrilling and intoxicating to people." How thrilling and intoxicating? "Put it this way," says Haidt, "the flag of my state is an image of a woman warrior with a bared breast and her foot on a dead man, who represents tyranny. The state emblem is a murder."

But it's not typically a single, half-clad Joan of Arc who brings down a dictator like Mubarak. It's a mobilized force representing a deeply fed up nation, and that happens in a very predictable way. Political wildfires, like all fires, start small, with scattered acts of defiance or rebellion. When the conditions are right, many of those little fires come together, and then the blaze accelerates fast. (Comment on this story.)

"It has to do with a lot of things," says political science professor Ian Lustick of the University of Pennsylvania, "the density of the social networks, how fast the second movers follow the first ones, and the third then follow the second. The pattern is the same in most such rebellions, with a cascade of events leading to a tipping point."

Of course, even a revolution that looks fast in hindsight can seem awfully slow while it's unfolding, and eighteen full days elapsed between the time Egyptians began rising up and Mubarak finally quit the field. For most of that period, it was clear to any rational observer that his position was untenable, so why did it take him so long to reach that conclusion too?

First of all, never underestimate the impenetrability of the presidential bubble. "Dictators dislike dissent and they surround themselves with sycophants," says Haidt. "It is quite common for them to have no idea about how they're actually viewed by their people."

See photos of the celebration in Tahrir Square.

This may make the dictators seem almost absurdly clueless, but in this sense, Mubarak is no worse than the rest of us. As a rule, Haidt explains, we all have a more accurate impression of other people - their skills, temperaments and talents - than we do of ourselves. There's a reason for the much-cited findings that while American kids rank in the middle of the pack on global measures of academic skills, they rank at the top in self-confidence. We're just not good self-evaluators. "Now," says Haidt, "scale that up to an aging dictator who's been in office for decades."

Defiance plays a role too. David Ottoway, a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC, was once a journalist for the Washington Post reporting from Egypt - and was in fact on the reviewing stand in 1981 when Mubarak's predecessor, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated. In the preceding months, he says, Sadat had been consolidating his power in much the way Mubarak did, with harassment and arrests of his political opponents. When the West condemned these moves, Ottaway says that Sadat, quite literally, underwent a mental breakdown. (See how Mubarak's malingering left Egypt at a crossroads.)

"He had been a global hero for a long time, but then the western press turned against him," Ottoway says. "He responded by kicking out the reporter for Le Monde. He kicked out NBC. At a press conference, someone asked him if he had consulted with Washington before he began his domestic crackdown and he went nuts, saying he would not respond to Western diktats. He couldn't believe he was being questioned. In Mubarak's case, I'm once again thinking of the last weeks of Sadat."

Mubarak's decision, at last, to throw in the towel may have played out in his mind in the same incremental way the demonstrations played out across the country. Lustick believes that in both cases, there is a slow building of momentum, with different voices arguing different options, until, again, a cascade begins. (See TIME's exclusive photos of the uprising in Cairo.)

"There's always a voice in the dictator's brain that says you should get out now," Lustick says, "but the voices in the middle, the ones that are unsure, are the loudest, and that keeps him where he is. After a while, however, the dictator stops worrying about the longer-term future and instead worries about the near-term danger of being wrong. You saw the same thing from the Shah and Nicolae Ceausecu. They made all these speeches saying I'm never going to leave and then boom, suddenly they're gone."

It is perhaps the ultimate indignity for vainglorious types like dictators that their final acts in office so often involve nothing more heroic than saving their own skins as well as their own fortunes - and Mubarak appears to have salvaged both. But scientists see an even greater humiliation at work than that. Mubarak's sudden, Thursday-to-Friday transition from rigidity to capitulation is what Lustick describes as a "cusp catastrophe. Think of a dog that's snarling at you and looks like it's ready to snap," he says. "The fact is, at the same time, he's right at the point of running away with his tail between his legs."

Let that then capture the long-in-coming departure of Hosni Mubarak - dictator, oppressor, very bad dog.

See a video of the reaction to Mubarak's Speech in Tahrir Square.

See photos of Hosni Mubarak while he was in power.

View this article on Time.com

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Egypt's VP: Call for Mubarak's departure unethical

NEW: Protesters in front of Egypt's parliament try to block the army from breaking them upSuleiman says the call for Mubarak's 'departure' is unethicalThe vice president says a coup would lead to more "irrationality"
Cairo, Egypt (CNN) -- A mass of protesters maintained their ground at the epicenter of demonstrations Wednesday after Egypt's vice president said the call for President Hosni Mubarak's immediate departure is disrespectful to the people of the country.
Protesters united in Cairo's Tahrir Square Wednesday for a 16th day of demonstrations. A massive Egyptian flag was sprawled across part of Tahrir, and by 1 p.m. (6 a.m. ET) a large section of the square was packed.
Meanwhile, another group of protesters tried to block the country's army from breaking up demonstrations near Egypt's parliament. The army tried to talk protesters into leaving, but demonstrators blocked off two ends of the street in front of the parliament.
The throngs of protesters returned a day after Vice President Omar Suleiman denounced the massive call for Mubarak's immediate exit.
"The word 'departure,' which is repeated by some of the protesters, is against the ethics of the Egyptians because Egyptians respect their elders and their president," Suleiman told a group of newspaper editors, according to a state-run news agency. "It is also an insulting word not only to the president but for the people of Egypt as a whole."
State-run Nile TV showed footage of Mubarak meeting Wednesday with the country's foreign minister and Alexander Sultanov, Russian deputy foreign minister and Mideast envoy. It was not immediately clear what the officials were discussing.
Thousands jammed Tahrir Square on Tuesday, dismissing the embattled regime's pledges of constitutional reforms. Some were galvanized by the words of a freed Google executive, and a second front sprouted as protesters filled the city block where Egypt's parliament building stands.
Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who was seized January 28 and released Monday, became a face for Egypt's uprising. After a television interview that inspired protesters, Ghonim spoke from a makeshift stage Tuesday in Tahrir Square.
"This country, I have said for a long time, this country is our country, and everyone has a right to this country," he said. "You have a voice in this country. This is not the time for conflicting ideas, or factions, or ideologies. This is the time for us to say one thing only, 'Egypt is above all else.'"
Ghonim, a Dubai-based marketing executive, is the administrator of a Facebook page called "We are all Khaled Said," named after an Alexandria activist who was allegedly beaten to death by police. The page is widely credited with calling the first protest January 25.
Another Facebook page created to authorize Ghonim to speak on behalf of the protesters has 150,000 fans.
Dalia, a protester in Tahrir Square who did not give her last name, said she came to the demonstration for the first time Tuesday. "Nothing will make this regime go unless we keep on coming and keep on coming," she said.
As protesters entered the square, they were greeted by a crowd of singing and clapping supporters.
"Hang in there," the reception line sang, "freedom is being born."
Suleiman blamed the large presence of demonstrators and some satellite TV channels for making people reluctant to go to work, according to state-run media.
The vice president also said that "dialogue and mutual understanding are the first way to achieve stability" and that a coup would "mean miscalculated and rushed steps" and would lead to more "irrationality."
Earlier, Suleiman announced on state television that a committee has been authorized to amend Egypt's constitution to allow for free, fair and competitive elections. The amendments, Suleiman said, would be drafted by an independent judicial commission.
He said he had discussed a number of reforms in recent talks with opposition representatives. Among them were greater freedom for the media, the release of detainees and the lifting of the continuous state of emergency. He also assured Egyptians that they should not fear arrest for speaking their minds.
But with the credibility of the regime in serious question, the statements from Mubarak's deputy fell short. Real change, say Mubarak's foes, can only come with Mubarak's immediate departure and an overhaul of the constitution, not amendments here and there.
"That's not good enough," said Mohammed Habib, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a key opposition party in Egypt that is outlawed by the constitution on grounds that it is based on religion.
"The first thing that the regime should do is for the president to leave," he said. "The government is dividing the opposition through these announcements."
Asem Abedine, head of the pan-Arab Nassiri party, said Mubarak is merely angling for time.
"The government is only making these announcements to avoid making real changes demanded by the people," he said. "The emergency laws should be lifted."
Mubarak has ruled Egypt with an iron hand since 1981, aided by an emergency decree that gave him sweeping powers.
Since the protests began January 25, he has appointed a vice president for the first time, reshuffled his Cabinet and announced that he won't seek a new term in September.
However, the constitution remains, reshaped in 2005 and again in 2007, to help retain power for the ruling National Democratic Party.
It has been at the heart of the dialogue between the government and some opposition representatives, who want several articles amended to make way for greater political participation.
The demonstrations got an extra shot of energy Tuesday from Ghonim's interview on Dream TV, a private Egyptian satellite channel. Ghonim said four people surrounded him at 1 a.m. on January 28.
"I yelled, 'Help me,' but of course I knew these were security forces.
"The thing that tortured me the most when I was in detention was that people would find out that I was the admin (of the Facebook page)," he said. "Because I am not the hero -- I was writing with the keyboard on the internet and my life was not exposed to any danger."
He walked out of the Dream TV interview in tears after being shown photos of those killed in the uprising.
"I want to say to every mother and every father that lost his child, I am sorry, but this is not our fault," he said before leaving. "I swear to God this is not our fault. It is the fault of everyone who was holding onto power greedily and would not let it go."
But while the crowds remained large and energetic, opposition voices have started to splinter.
Some, including members of the self-declared Council of the Wise, have said they don't agree that Mubarak's immediate departure would be the best thing for Egypt.
Arab League Secretary-General Amre Moussa, who was among protesters last week, told CNN this week that Mubarak should be allowed a "dignified exit" in September.
"I believe that the president should stay until the end of his mandate. The consensus is growing on this point because of certain constitutional considerations," Moussa said.
State television in Egypt has suggested that the United States is helping fund the protests, which -- it says -- have been infiltrated by Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and others.
The divisions within the opposition raised fears that they could work to the regime's advantage.
"The danger at the moment is that this opposition, which a few days ago seemed to unite, is now being divided," said Cairo-based analyst Issandr El Amrani. "The regime is using its tried and true tactic of divide and conquer."
CNN's Ben Wedeman, Ian Lee, Salma Abdelaziz, Saad Abedine, Amir Ahmed, Frederik Pleitgen, Caroline Faraj and Jill Dougherty contributed to this report.
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