It’s too early to tell.

Reports this morning suggest that the military may indeed force Mubarak to step down. According to Radio 4, the troops in Tahrir Sq have said they will return fire if the demonstrators are attacked by pro-Mubarak forces again this morning.

As for your ” In the end, conservatives who want law and order restored always fuck it up for everyone else.” ….. it ain’t necessarily so.

People power has worked elsewhere; whether in the long term Egypt emerges as a fully functioning democracy remains to be seen.

I think Sunny is correct.

The signs look like that the military may step in.

It will be like Pakistan, with a military, saying that they are there to ‘restore law and order,’ until conditions are right for free and democratic elections and then never leave.

It will supported by Israel, the hypocrisy of the US & the UK, multi nationals particularly oil companies & other Middle Eastern Dictatorships, whilst the population, particularly Palestinians are screwed over!

Otherwise known as business as usual!

Too fatalistic, Sunny, for a couple of reasons:

1) The army is unlikely to be unaffected as an institution by the protests. At least part of the reason they haven’t simply started mowing people down is because command probably fear that a section of the rank and file would disobey orders. You say it’s because they’ve been outnumbered, but a well-organised, well-led, highly armed army can always beat an unarmed or poorly armed mass revolt. The fact that the Egyptian army hasn’t shot protesters – and indeed is threatening to shoot Mubarak’s thugs instead – is vital for the revolt’s success. If the army command does order the rank and file to shoot protesters, troops may disobey.
2) The social forces unleashed can’t be put back in the bottle. Everyone’s going on about the Muslim Brothers, but their real institutional weight has been overshadowed by the emergence of a grassroots democracy; people’s committees being formed; local defence militias stopping crime and looting; independent trade unions being formed for the first time. The opposition parties can’t be excluded any more, and the NDP can’t govern any more. Even if the military does implant one of its own as an interim leader, they can’t rule in the old ways.

There’s much still up for grabs. But the regime (not Mubarak, the state and its allies) would have to resort to mass terror to smash the democratic forces being assembled here. And that would be a huge gamble for the ruling elites, because in the resultant polarisation, the democratic forces may end up with more firepower on their side.

Better late than never, I suppose.

Mubarak has been in power as Egyptian president for 30 years. Apparently, western governments have just become aware that he is a dictator who has successfully repressed all attempts by opposition political parties in Egypt to challenge his autocratic power during that time.

By most accounts, the main reason for overlooking these unpleasant facts is not that his administration has been notably sucessful in the management of Egypt’s economy but because of the stability his despotic rule has brought to the Middle East by maintaining the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, signed in 1979, and the support the treaty has provided for Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian lands and the extension of Israeli settlements thereon.

Agree with Sunny.

The fact that the uprising was spontaneous and leaderless was a romantic element for anarchists like me but, until they know what they want to replace the current regime with, they are unlikely to be successful.

Perhaps that is just as well………

Dunno if anyone’s seen this:

[BBC] correspondent Jon Leyne spoke to [a] retired general who is in close contact with the tank crews policing the protests in Tarhir Square.

He was told that the Egyptian army was now willing to open fire on violent pro-government protesters and predicted that President Mubarak would be out of power by tomorrow.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9386000/9386007.stm

Clearly the army can’t be understood as homogenous. The upper echelons enjoy disproportionate power within the regime, and doubtless skim some personal, corrupt benefit from Egypt being the world’s second largest recipient of US aid. The rank and file however are conscripts, as I understand it, and therefore much closer to the population and their concerns.

The question has always been how this internal dynamic would play out. The fact that the army didn’t fire on protestors last week was encouraging, and as Richard indicates, was probably due to the likely unwillingness of the soliders to shoot if ordered to do so. The fact that it stood by while Mubarak’s goons attacked the protestors yesterday was highly discouraging, and probably due to the army high-command’s unwillingness to issue orders that would constitute defiance of their own regime.

This tension has still not been resolved. If it is – in either direction – that will be highly significant, and probably decisive.

From the West’s point of view, it has to be constantly remembered that the physical violence on the streets of Egypt today is the direct product of decades of structural violence that we have supported. The blood is on the hands of Western leaders as much as it is on the hands of Mubarak and his thugs

I agree (blimey!) with Richard Seymour for once: it is far too close to call but the reality of the democratic surge cannot be dismissed and the army is clearly compromised by the events and no longer under the complete control of the generals (although that could change). It wouldn’t take much for it all to collapse, but it wouldn’t take much for it to go the other way either.

More on the evolving position of the army this morning from the Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/03/egyptian-army-disperses-mubarak-supporters

The danger for the top brass is that there’s a limit to how much violence against ordinary people the conscripts will be able to witness before a mutiny situation develops. I don’t want to be overly optimistic, but I can’t help thinking that the mob was the regime’s final card, which it could only play with the passive complicity of the army. If that complicity can’t be relied upon, then where else does the regime, or Mubarak at least, have to go?

I think it’s too early to even say Mubarak is finished. If his thugs can carry on attacking the protesters he could turn things around. I’m sure the British and US governments would find some “pragmatic” way of continuing to support him if they had to.

9 Cherub

Although you may be right, the tide seems to be turning against Mubarak personally, even if the outcome isn’t (immediately) the type of warm, fuzzy, secular, democrat many in the West would prefer.

The trouble with your line about the US and British governments continuing to support him if he or some equally repellent replacement somehow manages to stay in power, (which I doubt they will..but let’s play along for a while…) is what you expect those and other western governments to do?

Do we cut off all aid? Impose sanctions? Do we arm the opposition? There are problems with all the options.

Fucking hell Sunny, don’t you read or understand whats gong on? Or do you simply make it up as you go along, painting whoever you feel ought to be as the villains?

The military have remained neutral, and have been trying to seperate factions in Tahrir square, whilst protecting the museums there. They have even stated that Mubarak should leave earlier than he promised for the sake of public peace and safety. Simply put, they’ve been pretty uninvolved, but certainly not backing up either faction. Whilst clearly a powerful faction in Egypt, they are powerful in much the way the military are in Turkey – and the Turkish army actually has defended secularism in Turkey.

After all that is said, I agree with Sunny on one point – the chances of western style democracy in Egypt is slim to none. Revolutions in that part of the world have a history of replacing one dictator with an even worse one.

As for the Muslim brotherhood? I doubt an organisation closely linked to the formation of Hamas and believing in the formation of the caliphate is going to rally secular support. Frankly, the large Christian population in Egypt will be shitting themselves hoping they don’t come to power, leaving them in a situation similar to that Christians face in Iraq at the moment.

From the Telegraph’s rolling commentary;

11:56 Egyptian tanks are pushing pro-Mubarak factions away from Tahrir Square, according to AFP and Reuters. Al Jazeera has this shot of the army sending in reinforcements into the area – several reporters have suggested that even if the army wanted to get involved, they simply didn’t have the numbers to do so safely or effectively earlier:

@10 Galen

I agree, it’s just distasteful. Least bad option, I suppose.

Looks like the shiite is really about to hit the fan….

I agree with Richard Seymour @3. Earlier in the week there was talk of a national strike to put additional pressure on the regime, but I haven’t heard what is happening on this front recently. Are the unions independent and organised enough to do this, and how will they co-ordinate action if social networking sites are shut down?

“In the end, conservatives who want law and order restored always fuck it up for everyone else.”

I should have thought everyone would want law and order restored. There’s no point overthrowing a regime if the result is chaos.

“There’s no point overthrowing a regime if the result is chaos.”

I don’t know, Nick is forever linking to articles claiming Somalia is better now than under Siad Barre.

Richard:

The fact that the Egyptian army hasn’t shot protesters – and indeed is threatening to shoot Mubarak’s thugs instead – is vital for the revolt’s success. If the army command does order the rank and file to shoot protesters, troops may disobey.

True, but with the army chief’s statement last night, its unlikely the army will remain as a spectator for long. Today or tomorrow they’ll start shooting at people to “restore order”

The opposition parties can’t be excluded any more, and the NDP can’t govern any more. Even if the military does implant one of its own as an interim leader, they can’t rule in the old ways.

Maybe, but don’t underestimate the willingness of people to just want some stability. These are economically driven riots, remember, because the pro-democracy lot have been agitating for decades and not got very far.

If some authoritarian and charismatic leader comes in, offers jobs for everyone, and stability, I bet most Egyptians will stop and give him a chance. Or at least they’ll be divided quickly on tactics going forward.

Sunny,

You are aware that Egypt is a basically homogenous country ethncially aren’t you? Almost all the population (including Christians and the few Jews) see themselves as Arab (the small Berber minority based primarily in the Sinai is the only minority I can identify). This makes it different from most African countries (and most other Middle Eastern countries, where there are different ‘types’ of Arab) as the dictatorship cannot end up with security forces consisting of only a few ethnic groups which will then be easier to use in a racist manner (sorry, that is a huge simplification) against protesters. Here, it would simply be Egyptian Arabs against Egyptian Arabs, and the army is keenly aware of this.

The army may seek to provide an interim leader and then push back democracy, but unless they are prepared to use force against their own people (in every sense) they will still face the calls for democracy and the same problem. I would be more hopeful myself, as ultimately I doubt the generals can force their men to shoot their own countryfolk (note here I do think they would shoot the pro-regime thugs, but this would be in line with the popular mood).

LOve it!hahahah

I tend to disagree, Sunny. My overriding impression is that the army’s response has been incoherent – hence different generals saying different things to different news outlets at different times, and all these conflicting reports as to who they are actually defending. So what looks like a strategy of ‘wait and see and then enter into a power vacuum’ is actually a complete absence of strategy. As for their being welcomed by the protesters, this was to a large extent the protesters’ attempt to manipulate them: make them feel loved and they won’t shoot on us. But also there’s obviously a lot of sympathy, especially in lower echelons, for the protests; as Richard Seymour points out, the generals must be aware that were they to order them to shoot on the protesters they might end up with mutiny — in which case the army itself could collapse. So I imagine that they are in self-preservation mode, but don’t know how to go about it, and thus the incoherence of their various directives. It’s also worth pointing out that the protesters are now entirely sceptical about the army’s involvement, and they are very unlikely to be able to cast themselves as saviours in a post-Mubarak world. My guess right now is that the army will be significantly weaked after this episode.

Another important thing is to dismiss the fatalistic view that Egypt will either emulate the Musharraf coup in Pakistan in 1999 or Iran in 1979. It’s particularly depressing to hear people on the left (not in this blog, I hasten to add) say that army rule will at the very least protect Egypt from Islamism. Remember that in Iran, the secular (left-wing) revolution was quashed with massive support from the US for the Ayatollahs, who saw Islamism as a bulwark against communism (and in doing so created an enemy for a post-communist world). This has been an ostensibly secular protest and I don’t see the US giving the (financial, intelligence, military) support to radical Islam to hijack it this time round! But if it transpires that an Islamist Egypt is improbable, and that the army has lost face, then supporting them becomes bad realpolitik. So there are reasons to be sanguine, I think.

“different generals saying different things to different news outlets at different times,”

Apparently one of them told the BBC that there will be a coup tomorrow. Which strikes me as the most stupid thing to do if you are planning a coup.

The Egyptian wealthy class are being asked (it seems) to do what white South Africans did when they gave up apartheid. Or it’s like demanding that Dubai make all it’s exploited foreign workers, full citizens.

See what happened to BBC reporter Rupert Wingfield-Hayes when he went snooping around the upscale Cairo suburb of Heliopolis .

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12351996

Tea leaf reading. Hope for change innit. Like Obama. Yes we can and ting and ting..

Here’s a prediction. We are all going to leave left/right politics for dust and enter a new age of cross border guaranteed human rights. COME ON EGYPT!!