So, it looks like Mubarak is going to step down, or that something is a brewing. Already various voices have warned ominously of the Muslim Brotherhood's standing in the shadows waiting to radicalize the call for democracy. Keep in mind that the radicalization of various revolutions, from the French to the Iranian, or their hijacking by forces of the old order, like some of the color revolutions in the old Soviet Union, played out the way they played out because of actual people making decision and taking concrete actions. Take, as an example, Alexander Kerensky the liberal leader of the Provisional Government until the Bolshevik coup. He and his fellow politicians worried excessively about Russia's commitments to the Allies while the Allies pressured the Provisional Government to greater exertions. Consequently, Kerensky and his fellows not only refused to pull Russia out of a war that was ruining its economy and was more or less universally despised, they actually authorized an attack on the Germans which destroyed the Army and led to the Provisional Government's destruction.
In other words, who gets what in the wake of Mubarak's resignation, should he resign, is an internal matter and an external matter. If the US and others try to engineer against some group or another, they may well delegitimate the whole process leading to greater chaos leading to an aggressive minority, of what ever stripe, to seize control.
UPDATE:
Well he didn't resign nor yet even give any evidence of being interested in resigning or really understanding the nature of those opposed to his continued reign. Also, an Egyptian history where short means long.
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