As if there were any doubt at this point, Mubarak sealed the end of his Pharaonic line today when he announced that his son, Gamal, will not succeed him as president.
But if he thought this announcement would pacify the protesters he was sorely mistaken. For they now seem more determined and emboldened than ever to force him to resign.
Not least because they blame Mubarak for the camel-riding goons who launched coordinated attacks yesterday in an attempt to forcibly remove them from Tahrir Square, where they’ve been camped out 10 days now.
The newly appointed prime minister vehemently denied any government involvement in these attacks. Yet he was compelled to make an unprecedented apology for this violent turn of events. He pledged that the army will avert any further clashes between die-hard Mubarak supporters and protesters, and promised that those who instigated them will be “publicly” prosecuted.
Never mind that some of those involved were exposed as plain-clothes policemen – presumably acting at the behest of government officials.
To be fair, though, Mubarak supporters claim that the protesters are launching unprovoked attacks against them as well, and they are posting video evidence to prove it.
Indeed, all journalists and commentators seem to have forgotten that just a week ago it was these putatively innocent protesters who were burning government offices and looting local businesses with impunity. At any rate, compared to Tiananmen Square, these skirmishes amounted to nothing more than a rowdy family picnic.
In point of fact, the army took up positions overnight to keep the two factions apart. Reports are that 8 people were killed and over 5000 injured during running battles over the past 36 hours. But the ultimate test will come after Friday prayers tomorrow. For this is the deadline the protesters have set for Mubarak to leave not just his office, but their country too.
Apropos of this, Vice-President Suleiman took to state TV this afternoon to disabuse protesters and their foreign enablers (most notably President Obama) of this uncompromising demand:
Thank you to the youth for what you have done to start the reform process. Now give the state an opportunity to achieve what you have demanded…
Intervention in our internal affairs…to tell us to do this or do that is strange, unacceptable and we will not allow it. Call for departure is very strange. We respect the father and leader…for what he has done for 30 years… The president said he will not run again…the remaining term of his presidency is the stage to carry out the reforms…
Calls for the departure of the president is a call for chaos.
(BBC, February 3, 2011)
Meanwhile, the economic life of this country, especially its all important tourism industry, is dead. And the lack of basic social services is causing tensions to rise even among Egyptians not actively involved in the protests. But if there’s any hope of Egypt being resurrected, this national standoff must end within days, not weeks (or, God forbid, months)….
He told me that he is fed up with being president and would like to leave office now, but cannot, he says, for fear that the country would sink into chaos… He told me, “I never intended to run [for office] again. I never intended Gamal to be president after me.” Gamal, his son, was sitting in the room with us as he said this.
This was how Christiane Amanpour of ABC News reported on her exclusive interview with Mubarak this afternoon. But before you dismiss him as being hopelessly delusional, consider this: the reason Mubarak feels so strongly that Egypt would descend into Islamofascist chaos without him is that successive U.S. presidents over the past 30 years made him feel that way.
This is why I think it’s politically myopic, naive, and unfair for Obama to be endorsing (albeit with diplomatically ambidextrous language) the protesters’ uninformed and petulant view that Mubarak does not deserve the honor of a graceful exit on the reasonable terms he has proposed. By the way, the essence of those terms is that he be allowed to oversee constitutional and economic reforms until September, when his current term expires, in exchange for his promise not to seek re-election.
I also find it curious that Obama is effectively calling on the Egyptian military to guarantee the protesters’ democratic aspirations. Ironically, he and other Western leaders seem to believe that the best way to transition from Mubarak’s dictatorship to democracy is by installing a de facto military dictatorship. The problem, however, is that in almost every case where this strategy has been deployed (e.g. in Pakistan and Burma), the military ended up overstaying its welcome … by years, if not decades.
On the other hand, I commend Obama for not buying into the scapegoating of the Muslim Brotherhood. But this is probably because he’s praying that Egypt’s military generals do not share any of the Islamic-Jihadist sympathies that have made dealing with Pakistan’s military generals so bedeviling….
Having said all that, reports are that Mubarak is in the final stages of negotiations with the U.S. to take a golden parachute out of the country “immediately.” No doubt he’ll be seeking ironclad assurances that no successor Egyptian government or international tribunal will be coming after him to put him on trial for human rights abuses or to recover any of the billions he and his family members siphoned from the national treasury.
All the same, if I were an Arab dictator who is considered a “friend of the United States,” I would be desperately seeking a new superpower patron today. I hear China is an even more generous Sugar Daddy; and who better to serve as patron of a Third World dictatorship….
NOTE: I think it’s too bad a few journalists have been roughed up. But nothing reflects what prima-donna celebrities they’ve become quite like the media now making the crisis in Egypt all about them.
Related commentaries:
Mubarak concedes: too little, too late?
* This commentary was published originally last night, Thursday, at 10:18.
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