I see how talking news heads still insist on calling various uprisings sprouting in the Mideast post Tunisia and Egypt as 'democratic protests' or some wrangle of  words akin to that - is this because they believe this to be the case? because it's the easiest thing to do given that more appropriate and factual descriptions would require too much explication and context? or because the best way to sell the story to gullible and nearly somnolent news consumers is to give it a catchy name? It would be amusing, after a fashion, if the only reality they could see or recognize was the false one they manufactured in order to sell a story that, although awkwardly not particularly real, was after all more appealing. Do they even notice that nothing really has changed in Tunisia? that Mubarak, who was always only a reflection of the military's control over Egyptian affairs, has been replaced by a now even more empowered military because that's what they wanted and this was only tangentially related to the vague 'democratic' bleatings of the protesters? or that the distemper in Bahrain may be all about sectarian Shiite resentment towards a ruling Sunni minority and not all about a democratic overthrow of the monarchy and if so and successful may yet set  off a chain of reactions that could prove quite unsettling, not the least of which being Iran reclaiming the island Kingdom as a long lost possession of greater Persia? A bloody Iranian backed Shiite insurrection against Sunni rule in Bahrain ought to go down well in nearby very Sunni Saudi Arabia - not that at the moment I see much chance of that happening - I'm just saying.

Not sure exactly why all these goings on in the Mideast excite nothing but skepticism bordering on outright cynicism in me - but no doubt it stems from me having zero or very close to zero confidence in the ability of Islam as it stands today and democracy being able to abide each other in anything even remotely resembling a mutuality beneficial way. One has to subdue the other, as Christianity was in the West by the forces of personal freedom, ingenuity, avarice, ambition and the ascendancy of the rational empiricism of doubt engendered by a scientific method stretching from Aristotle to Aquinas to Locke - this hasn't happened in the Islamic world because Islam stifles these things, it fosters societies and citizens ill suited to take up the challenges of freedom and doubt - yes, it wasn't always this way, there was once a strong element of willful rationality in the Persian and Arab worlds, in mathematics and philosophy and science - but Islam crushed them - everything in the secular world under Islam is necessarily subordinated to the wishes and dictates of Allah and the clerics who guard the straight and narrow path thereof. Granted, this repression, this stifling of the individual, this fear of change may not operate as a monolithic presence in the Muslim world, but it is still integral, fundamental to the reality of Islamic rule - just raise the issue of apostasy and you'll see proof of this - which is why Andrew McCarthy in NRO today says this of the looming execution of an apostate in a supposedly liberated Afghanistan:

The purpose of real democracy, meaning Western republican democracy, is to promote individual liberty, the engine of human prosperity. No nation that establishes a state religion, installs its totalitarian legal code, and hence denies its citizens freedom of conscience, can ever be a democracy — no matter how many “free” elections it holds. Afghanistan is not a democracy. It is an Islamic sharia state.

Now, I admit it's probably more than just a little bit unfair for a non-expert like myself to make blanket judgments concerning the political liabilities of Islam - and, yes, although McCarthy is something of an expert on the subject he can at times seem more Islamaphobe than well intentioned critic - still, c'mon, at this late date in the history of the species that just how specific the Koran is on the killing of apostates can even be considered a legitimate topic of debate in the Muslim world says just about all I need to hear concerning Islam and democracy - hell, Turkey, often held up as an example of Muslims and liberty peacefully cohabiting, is led by a man who openly admits that he considers democracy to be merely a means to an end that very likely results in a something not resembling democracy in any substantial way whatsoever [and let's be honest, Turkey is only a proto-democracy because a committed secularist forced democracy on it] - the Muslim Brotherhood has come out and declared that of course they want democracy for Egypt - an Islamic version you understand, not that infidel Western nonsense - how gullible does one have to be to hear that and not immediately struggle to choke down an incredulous guffaw?

But the point here is not so much the more general argument over just how compatible Islam and democracy are [although I will continue to insist that it verges on self evident that they're not very compatible at all] - rather, the point here is that it seems dangerously foolish if not outright naive to consistently be describing the current unrest in the Mideast as a native outpouring of desire for Western styled freedom and governance. Not only is there precious little evidence of that, but such sentimentality obscures the fact that there are forces at work here - some a mere consequence of circumstances, some deliberate - that are decidedly not friendly to Western interests and values and therefore may act to worsen the problems endemic to the region rather than ameliorate them.

Is this the next president of the United States? I've had my eye on him for awhile now, have read a few articles by him, closely watched some interviews with him - he get's my early vote I think. George Will's superb introduction of him at this speech raises the concerns people have: he's short [bad optics compared to Obama] and his persona, his demeanor comes across as a bit too staid, some might even say drab. I don't necessarily see that - true, these are real concerns no matter how trivial they may sound - but I get the feeling his delivery would play well against Obama's - Obama seems too stylized, phony even, and much of the charm of him has worn off for people - in contrast I think Daniels may come off looking and sounding sincere, real, a man of simple integrity. Hard to predict how these characteristics would play out over the long slog of a campaign - does a persons appeal wax or wane the more you hear them? - but my guess is Daniels persona would work well in a town hall like venue, the one on one TV interview setting and probably in the debates - not very well at all before a large crowd or in the heightened atmospherics of a rally.

[although Daniels appeals on business and management related issues, there's little there there when it comes to foreign policy - but of course one can say that about all the potential candidates - even though foreign policy always plays a key but often glossed over [see Obama] role in presidential elections, it's my prediction that the next commander in chief is going to be especially hard put upon is this regard - I worry that the strategic health and relevance of the country could become significantly compromised under the light weight stewardship of another Obama term or a replacement equally not well suited to the discipline - which is why one tends to believe the best candidate is going to be one with executive experience who has demonstrated an ability to make tough decisions and get things done - which pretty much describes Daniels - unfortunately the flawed primary process, where narrow ideological interests on both sides of the aisle often carry far too much influence, a process which almost seems perversely designed to marginalize qualified people like Daniels, will probably disqualify him before he can even start - as one writer commented on National Review website this morning, Daniels speech at CPAC got him so excited about seeing a presidential run by him that it almost guarantees that he won't run - interestingly, in the CPAC straw poll Daniels was nowhere to be seen, but in NRO's own little straw poll, Daniels leads - values voters probably doom a Daniels run just as anti-war uber liberals in the 2008 Dem primary doomed Hillary [although given the way she's performed as SecState that was maybe not such an awful thing]].

So, Mubarak has stepped down and the military is in charge - this makes sense - why the delay from yesterday remains perplexing - possibly it was as speculated an attempt by whomever or whatever is pulling the strings now to separate those who can be trusted from those can't - this just one of many, many questions that will be answered over the coming weeks and months. Should be interesting, and an interesting exercise in explication - there have been two distinct and opposing observational camps here: the realists/sceptics, and the progressives/neocons/optimists - I obviously fall into the former category - one of us is going to be proven right - I guess I should hope it's them since if my camp is vindicated that means something bad is going to happen, probably something very bad. Many variables in play here: we don't know what was behind the seeming confusion of last night; we don't know if rifts have developed in the military, factions with differing points of view and objectives; we don't know how Mubarak loyalists are going to respond nor how all those who stand to lose from a possible dismantling of the status quo will react to changes in their erstwhile good fortune; we don't know what promises if any have been made to the Muslim Brotherhood, whether or not they have allies in the military, how duplicitous they'll be with real power now finally within sight nor how that power, should it come, will alter or energize their ideological underpinnings for better or, much more likely in my opinion, worse; we don't know how disparate protesters, temporarily united by the short term goal of getting rid of Mubarak, will behave towards each other when they start to realize they have different long term agendas; we don't know what potentially disruptive roles outside actors will have: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria are very much afraid of similar events roiling their domains and therefore they want to see specific things happen in Egypt - Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah want to expand their influence and power throughout the region and therefore they too would like to see certain things and scenarios play out in a post Mubarak Egypt - Israel is stuck in the middle of all this, vulnerable, hated pretty much by everyone and staring at many months of sleepless nights.

And just as a way of tossing extra spice into the soup, keep in mind that Mubarak is now a free agent with many powerful friends still in the region and many scores to settle with enemies - especially and most importantly a very big one now with Obama - he held onto power for as long as he possibly could which means he's a very proud man and that pride is now severely abused which means he is now a very bitter man - I'd rate the likelihood as high that he spends much of the next few months trying to make Obama's life miserable.

Events in Egypt seem to have escalated dramatically over the last twenty-four hours - protests breaking out amongst disparate groups all over the country - strikes, civil disobediences of many kinds moving far beyond the youth centric uprising in Cairo - the military has released a statement saying they have 'stepped in' to insure the stability of the state and that the 'wishes of the people' will soon be answered - the Jerusalem Post says this indicates a coup is in progress - if so things could quickly start to spin out of control - when Mubarak is announced to have been relieved of duties, possibly as soon as today, there will be an initial, short lived phase of jubilation that may rapidly devolve into violence as different groups with vastly different agendas start to clash - at the very least, once the initial joy of victory subsides, the question of what next will weigh very heavily on events - people have wildly varying expectations here - the military has in many ways aided the protesters but in few ways actually supports their agenda - and this could be the moment the Muslim Brotherhood makes it's move, a demand for democracy possibly - but remember what Turkey's Erdogan had to say about democracy: it's like a street car - when you come to your stop you get off - in other words, democracy is but a means towards an alternate, even antithetical political reality that is your true goal, not a political end in itself.

My view of things is colored by my sharing the Israeli cynicism towards Arabs - Muslim governance in general - and democracy. Possibly that cynicism is misplaced and this could indeed be a watershed moment in Mideast politics - but I very much doubt it.

update: Very confusing - Mubarak has just come out and said he plans to stay on until September and the VP has told protesters they should go home - something doesn't make sense here - was there an attempted coup by junior officers and it failed? Or is this the hand the military has decided to play? Or was the reporting of what was happening erroneous? Expectations having been raised, I see no way protests simply stop without shots being fired - how does this possibly not get very ugly now? Although the chances of it not getting ugly regardless seemed slim to me. Is civil war a possibility as some are suggesting? I don't see that - there'd have too be an armed insurgency and there isn't one, unless the MB has a hidden cache somewhere courtesy of Hamas/Hezbollah. Again, some on both right an left in America want to blame Obama for not throwing full support behind democracy movement - I'm no fan of Obama's actions here, but I ask - what democracy movement are they talking about? In the unstable world of the Mideast America cannot be in the business of  trying to encourage inchoate uprisings to mutate into inchoate mass movements of dubious nature and motive that could easily become radicalized or hijacked by radicals - that would be insane. I'm having trouble understanding why the military has not forced Mubarak's hand - violence is sure to erupt here - I'm guessing there must be factions forming within the ranks - Obama has no choice now but to do what he can to force Mubarak out - is it possible that's what the military is waiting for?

And let's not forget that Panetta at the CIA came out tonight and strongly suggested Mubarak would be gone by tomorrow - why would he do that if they weren't convinced it was true? Are they that incompetent or was this a setup? Has Mubarak played Obama like a fool? But if so, and the result is violence and chaos, why? Or was it the Egyptian military, or possibly even a rogue element in the military playing Obama for a fool? But again, why? Well, I see why a rogue element might do it - but other than that I don't see how creating a situation almost sure to result in violence would serve their purposes - in which case could just be more incompetence from Obama.

Just got an update from STRATFOR and they want to say that the military does not have as much control over Mubarak as I'm assuming - but I'm not sure I buy that - Mubarak has put them in a very tough position here where there are really only two possibilities: the military stands aside and lets the protesters storm the presidential palace - or they stage a coup - no one seems to think they would fire on the protesters [not sure I share their confidence there - that would all depend on how they see things unfolding should they not fire] - so Mubarak seems to be in a no win situation and his intransigence is putting military in very tough spot: how is it possible he can get away with this unless they're giving him the latitude to do it? They have all the power now - Mubarak none. Doesn't make sense to me.

The suggestion has been made that Mubarak indeed was screwing with people by letting it be known that he was about to step down - but doing so in order to flush out traitors - and maybe a little bit to make Obama look foolish - I'm not sure I buy that either, it's possible, but for a man with few options that's a pretty risky game to be playing - I'm still feeling there must be more to it than that. One thing is sure, Obama's horrible decision to almost capriciously it seemed abandon Mubarak and cheer on the the protesters has left Washington near powerless since no one with real access to power in Egypt trusts Obama anymore - pretty much the very dynamic the Israelis have been warning against since the beginning.

Another surge of protesters in Cairo today - apparently spurred on by Google's man in Egypt, who was arrested early on and abused by police and now released is telling his tale - also he seems to be key man behind social media stirring pot of uprising - all young people it seems - there's a lot in the Arab world, more than there should be - unemployed, disgruntled for many reasons I assume - pretty much the backbone of the initial anti-gov't rage - the fixed election [or yet another fixed election] and Mubarak's ham-fisted attempt to install his son as successor pushed these people over the edge - add in Tunisia and the accelerant of social media - the military backing off because they also wanted to upend the Mubarak succession - and here we are - but not democracy and certainly not a telling sample of the Egyptian people - so revolution, no - not yet anyway - and if revolution does come very unlikely these disgruntled youth will be the power behind it - makes good sound bites for CNN et al, angry Arab youth declaiming vaguely about freedom etc etc - but that simply isn't the defining reality of the place - a young, educated Arab woman who writes a blog decrying the fate of females in the Muslim world - your heart goes out to her, sure, but this is a place where strong majorities support the imposition of Sharia or, not unrelated, have no problem with adulterers being stoned to death - we can't talk of democracy and personal liberty here, or at least we must be very cold and realistic when doing so - and it seems Obama has absorbed that message since his vacillating and confused approach to the crisis is now steering towards cautious and conservative - too late I think, leaders in the region have already sounded his depth and resolve and are no doubt less than impressed - certainly, it's seems unlikely the Israelis will ever trust him again in any substantial way.

The wild card remains the Muslim Brotherhood who continue to proceed tentatively - I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. Could be they reason that trying to graft their ideology onto the so far quite secular nature of the protests would raise suspicions and look too aggressive - if they're looking to be co-opted into some governing coalition reducing their threat profile would be useful. A book from the 90's by a former MB leader just translated into English may spell out a rather ambitious jihadist agenda but also states quite clearly that patience is necessary and warns against rash actions that may set the cause back - so that they're being a bit tentative here is possibly not surprising at all.

Powell’s successor at the State Department, Condoleezza Rice, who first served as Bush’s national security adviser, came off as inexperienced in his view. “She’d been an academic. And, you know, a lot of academics like to have meetings,” Rumsfeld said. “And they like to bridge differences and get people all to be happy.”

A quote from Rumsfeld concerning his soon to be released memoirs. A shot at Obama I take it - and a splenetic Rumsfeldian swipe at that entire ilk I'd say. And I pretty much agree with him - there's no doubt a lot Rumsfeld will have to say that I won't agree with, but one of my earliest 'warnings' about Obama, made I think before he'd even announced he'd run, was that he'd want to govern like an academic and that would be bad - academics tend to live in fantasy worlds of endless debate unsullied by real consequences - thrust into a situation rife will real consequences they'd flounder, reaching for rhetorical responses that had served them so well in their cocooned pasts - I figured this would prove especially a problem for Obama because, one, he loves his rhetorical flourishes [as does his adoring press], and two, his identity, his sense of himself and the big ego feeding off that identity are so tied up with the idealized solutions proffered by rhetoric and the adulation conjured thereof that he'd have a very difficult time when thorny issues [the economy, Afghanistan, now Egypt etc etc] had the impertinence to remain prickly despite the application of sweet oration. 

Think back to the Harvard prof who got into a heated argument with cops and had to be arrested - Obama's immediate response was immediate because it fit perfectly into an already defined narrative, he didn't have to think about it - poor black man abused by ignorant white cops, enlightened integrity beat down by mindless brutality - when that narrative turned out to be entirely wrong and the cops were shown to have simply been doing their job, Obama reached out for his rhetorical comfort food - all that was needed to fix this situation was better words, bigger words, grander ideas - a 'national conversation on race' - Dear Leader makes a stupid, rash judgement and suddenly we all have to participate in some idiotic conversation, a universal group hug - which of course never happened - but the press lionized him anyway for I guess just being so wonderful and having so many wonderful ideas - that the ideas were utterly detached form reality didn't seem to matter - not only to the press and other acolytes but, much more distressingly, to Obama himself - my feeling was that it wan't even an issue for him that he was talking nonsense just so long as it sounded good and lofty and his ego was duly rewarded for the effort - it was as if the only thing that matter was the speech itself and no one seemed bothered by that, not Obama, not the sycophantic press - very disturbing.

Not a lot of jobs where you can get away with bull shit like that - academic would certainly be one of them, in fact academia encourages this type of thing - President of the United States not so much - or rather, you can try and get away with it, but reality eventually steps up and demands, bluntly, enough with all the fucking around.

So, where we at with Egypt? A bit muddled. Hasn’t gone quite as I thought, but not that far removed I think. Seems to be some question about the persistence of the protests, actual size of them, and who is behind them. Seems to be an issue about the credibility of Al Jazzera’s reporting - stories running that other sources can’t verify, like related protests outside of Cairo. Implication is AJ has an agenda - but whose, other than obvious anti-American, anti-Israeli slant?

That the democracy angle has been over-hyped by the Western media I think is still very much the case. That operatives within the Egyptian gov’t, possibly the military, or at least with the military’s consent, exploited the uprisings as leverage to get rid of Mubarak and his son seems clear too. That Mubarak is toast is not at all clear yet - gone eventually, absolutely - but there are indications that he may be able to ride this thing out so as to leave in a more respectable manner a few months hence. The role played by the Muslim Brotherhood in the continuing protests is not clear, but that there’s some organizing force at work behind the scene seems likely if not indeed obvious - protesters are being supplied nice signs, food, water, transportation by somebody - probably good bet it’s the MB.

I don’t see much to indicate some broad, popular revolution unified by a specific agenda is in the offing - but that someone or some group could hijack current unrest for that purpose still a possibility I’d imagine. Certainly, continuing unrest leads to significant worsening of economic situation which leads to increased discontent - fertile conditions for the MB - and also, to counter that, fertile ground for possible coup - Egypt has a long history of the military stepping in and taking control.

Negotiations are reputedly ongoing concerning a transition phase, naming an intermediate leader, power sharing between factions etc etc [is the MB thinking of what Hezbollah has manged in Lebanon? Israel certainly is] - but I imagine there are no straight roads and the night is very dark in that land. Somebody has the upper hand here - definitely not El Baradei and the putative democratic wave - most likely the military and their chosen man - whether he keeps it or not and how far it extends are probably key questions here.

That Obama was too quick and went too far in marginalizing Mubarak and throwing support behind protesters I think remains true - that that was a serious blunder like to reap grievous consequences down the road I think remains likely - America is going to come out the villain no matter what so the key was to serve the cause of stability in the region as a whole first and foremost, which I think was what Israel's point was all along - it's true there were no good options for America, only degrees of bad, but still Obama's performance here is likely to be seen as left wanting as things progress - he's sliding into Jimmy Carter territory here I'm guessing - well, the left often acted as if he was the second coming of JC.

The people and sources I read and generally trust about these things seem to agree: don't expect much to change in Egypt unless it's for the worse ie Muslim Brotherhood rising; Mubarak promising not to run in next election is meaningless since he never intended to anyway; the military now asking protesters to back off suggests they've got what they wanted from the uprising ie an end to the Mubarak line and a person of their choosing in line to take over - this also seems to indicate strong potentiality that they were behind uprising in some way from the beginning [although if MB is ascendant not sure how that could be - still, no indication yet MB actually has benefited from uprising to any significant degree]; Obama's response has been confused and his decision to 'dump' Mubarak and support an uprising of highly dubious nature when he was really under no pressure to do so will look like a very bad move if Mubarak manages to hold on til the end of his term and if other autocrats in the region, now judging the US to be an unreliable partner, become more indulgent of extremists, more anti-Israel, as a way of securing themselves from similar uprisings by the discontented - or, conversely, if those discontented, seeing how easily the US [or simply Obama] can be duped or motivated into dumping autocratic allies, are emboldened to rise up and most decidedly not in the name of democratic reform.

I'm surprised how many are making declarations about the Egyptian situation when the facts of it really are not understood or known, namely - are we sure these demonstrations were autonomous and not manufactured and what exactly did the protesters want other than the ouster of Mubarak? It's all very nice to talk about democracy and liberalization etc but were those things ever really on the table? And even if one wants to claim they were, do we have any clear idea what these people mean when they mouth the words democracy and liberalization? Hamas and Hezbollah were democratically elected - hell, so were Mubarak and that little prick in Iran for that matter. 

In the end, if the status quo obtains in Egypt, the most interesting thing to come out of this [other than further evidence that Obama is in over his head] may be the now revealed truth regarding the destabilizing effects of social media on immature or repressed polities - and I don't mean in a good way. It's not like I wish these people ill, but the fact remains that it will probably only be through the cleansing effect of a great calamity that they manage to move forward and out from under the malaise of Islam - although that suggests I'm probably engaged in a delusion thinking that the putting off of this great upheaval will somehow soften the blow.

And let's not forget China, as regards the role of social media - those automatons of the Politburo can't be thrilled by what their seeing here - Twitter, Facebook etc are definitely making more difficult the math required to keep an autocracy viable - hell, they're screwing with the dynamics of mature democracies like ours - but then that's the value and benefit of democracy: constant change is not only tolerated and expected, it is in many ways often the desired for thing.

update: apparently violence has broken out between pro-Mubarak factions and those against - this confusing - I don't see how the pro faction could have been enabled without sanction from Mubarak - but how would violence serve his purposes? An escalation could only serve the radicals here - or possibly rogue officers looking for pretext to stage a coup - the nascent forces of putative liberalization could also benefit but they lack the organization required to pull it off - could the Muslim Brotherhood or the military be behind this? An odd - or mischievous - turn.

updated update: yes, should have seen this I guess, but appears military has ennabled pro-Mubarak faction in order to send message to ant-gov't forces that it's time to go home, the fun is over, we're now in control - violence allows the military to crack down now without looking intemperate - in short, this is playing out the way I [or rather the people I read] said it would - and of course the mainstream media seems to be completely missing the reality here - that being that the military is and probably always has controlled the agenda here, there are probably as many people in Egypt who support Mubarak as who oppose him [and certainly the elite classes want to keep what Mubarak represents around even if they don't want him around], that the motivation behind the uprising was never clear and ultimately has done nothing  but serve the purposes of those who didn't want Mubarak's son succeeding him, that Mubarack understands Egypt a lot better than the western media does who saw only what they wanted to see - and if things continue to play out this way Obama will once again be revealed as a horrible president. Things could completely turn around in the next few days I suppose so shouldn't jump to conclusions - and we haven't yet seen a real effort from the MB to exploit things to their advantage - but then they probably realize that if Mubarak is going to stay only to be replaced a few months from now by some autocrat not much different then they have to be careful about exposing themselves - and one guesses that the anti-gov't protesters on the street who have now been photographed extensively by security forces are probably waking up to that reality too.

Again, I'm struck by how quick the Western media pretty much as a whole and certain supposed intellectuals, on the left and the right, how quick they were to run with this whole 'democratic revolution' nonsense - not pretending I had a complete understanding of the dynamics of this from the beginning, but I never bought the democracy line and from the start found myself leaning to the Israeli point of view, which right now is looking like the right one.

Have been watching and reading about Eygpt, but not thinking much about it - or rather standing back and letting the ground settle a bit before trying to make sense of things - if things can even be made sense of - in fact Byron York wrote article today about how recent Pew Research polling suggests Egyptians themselves are quite confused about what a 'good' outcome would be, with answers to some questions suggesting that an embrace of Islamic fundamentalism would be acceptable [large pluralities in support of stoning to death for adulterers and death also for apostates etc] and other answers suggesting they possibly like the ideas of democracy and free speech - antithetical viewpoints which lead one to think that probably what they mean by democracy and free speech is different from what we mean [especially since the Koran forbids putting any law above Allah's]. Seems reasonably clearish to me though that there will be more losers than winners here - in fact the only winners may end up being the Muslim Brotherhood and related Islamist sects, and then everybody loses big time - but with the military increasingly calling shots I think that decreases likelihood of things playing out in MB's explicit favor - and possibly the net losses only end up being marginal ie Mubarak is replaced, which may amount to a relative 'good' if you actually live in Egypt but then maybe not so much if he's simply replaced by some inside operative, or even a military coup, that only offers the illusion of change - but of course if that happens the danger then becomes if the uprising really is an expression of deep seated discontent [and it's not at all clear that that's the case, or, even if it is, whether there's a central and unifying theme or motivation to it] then merely getting rid of Mubarak won't do - and it's at that point that uprisings turn into revolutions which are easily hijacked by radicals and extremists - and then you'd have lots of shit hitting a very big fan.

Since the Israelis probably have the most to lose here, I'm listening a lot to what they have to say - and they ain't an optimistic crew right now. Of course, they tend to not believe Islamic states are compatible with democracy and therefore dismiss out of hand the only universal positive that could come out of this disruption - and in general I agree with them on that point. Because of this cynicism they adhere to a 'better the devil you know' attitude - yes, Mubarak was an autocratic sleaze ball, but we trusted him to honor the peace and we don't trust at all in that regard what may follow after him. They're not at all happy with Obama admin response to crisis, which at first seemed clueless and now wants to embrace the idea of throwing Mubarak aside, something they see as suicidal viz US interests - Israelis really don't have any faith in Muslim capacity to regulate themselves according to modern norms of governance, law and individual liberty. No doubt they also fear that the removal of Mubarak sets a bad precedence for other unstable states in their neighborhood - Jordan, Saudi Arabia, even Syria - who may also indeed be under the rule of autocratic sleaze balls but who nevertheless can to a certain degree be relied on to keep the peace - a faux democratic wave may be cheered at first by naive types in US et al but the reality that would emerge from the turmoil of these toppling autocracies would be one of chaos, extremism and eventually war.

Still, the Egyptian military seems to have abandoned Mubarak [indeed I've read reports that this whole thing was manufactured by the military for the express purpose of getting rid of Mubarak and his son] and therefore his days are most likely numbered - and so I'm not sure you can fault Obama for abandoning him too and calling for democratic reforms. I dunno - as one wag said, there may be no good options for the US in Egypt but how did Obama manage to pick the worst of the bunch? I can see that turning out to be true.

But are you really saying that you're against supporting a democracy movement [who says it's a democracy movement? and what the fuck do they mean by 'democracy'?] in a Muslim country suffering under afflictions of a repressive or simply just dysfunctional oligarchy? Well, Obama didn't support same in Iran and there was much more cause for it there - although, I was not necessarily an advocate of it in that instance either. Look, you enter a donkey into a horse race and you don't suddenly become competitive by calling your ass Secretariat - if Egypt wakes up tomorrow and a military coup has taken control and announces that the Kingdom of the Nile will from now on be a real democracy that will be a meaningless statement - and I have no doubt carnage and chaos will swill in the wake. The problem with Arab Muslim polities is not a democracy deficit per se, but rather a dependence on Islam that retards the public weal when it comes to the demands of the modern world - China is hardly a democracy, yet it has advanced greatly in the last 20 years by adopting certain economic practices of the democratic West - if China was a Muslim country, does anyone believe that would have happened? Impossible to prove of course, but I would imagine most would say definitely not - and so there ya go.

So I side with the Israelis and remain quite sceptical viz Egypt - as for what the Obama admin should do, my guess is no matter what happens America will be scorned and repudiated and therefore their concern should be for whatever promotes stability in the region as a whole, keeping in mind that any false stability that however serves the interests of Iran would prove counterproductive - although, having said that, I'm not sure you can avoid that scenario - Iran's calculus here is in some ways even more treacherous than America's.