Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has said he would like to resign immediately but fears the country would descend into chaos if he did so.

In his first interview since anti-government protests began, he told ABC News he was "fed up" with power.

But he warned that the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood party would fill any power vacuum if he stepped down.

Cairo has seen another day of violence with clashes between the president's opponents and supporters.

Stones were thrown on both sides, and there has been some gunfire.

The army, which was trying to separate the two sides, appears to have failed to control the crowds.

Egypt's Health Minister Ahmed Samih Farid said that eight people had died in the fighting, which began on Wednesday, and 890 were injured, nine of them critically.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12361948

Written by Chris Floyd       

Wednesday, 02 February 2011
I must agree with As’ad AbuKhalil: The violence we are seeing in Egypt today (Wednesday) is a direct result of a green-light from Washington to “do what it takes” to preserve the Cairo regime. Today we have suddenly seen hundreds of “pro-Mubarak” goons pouring into the public squares to attack the non-violent demonstrators. The Egyptian Army – whom most of the demonstrators had lauded and looked to for protection from the police – is now apparently refusing to interfere with the attacks by the goon squads against the unarmed protestors. The UN reports that at least 300 people have already been killed in violence against the demonstrators since the uprising began: this number will now rise, perhaps sharply.

What is happening seems clear:  Mubarak, backed by Obama, has decided to foment a storm of bloodshed, chaos and fear in order to provide a justification for “restoring order” – i.e., crushing the uprising by force. This course could not have been adopted without the support of the Cairo regime’s patrons and paymasters in Washington. None of this should come as a surprise. From the very beginning, the administration of Barack Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been killing people – most of them defenseless civilians – all over the world to advance a brutal agenda of militarist domination and the enrichment of corrupt elites.

For decades, a pliant regime in Egypt has been a linchpin of this thoroughly bipartisan agenda. Obama’s task now is to preserve this arrangement if at all possible. Mubarak himself doesn’t matter; he’s now become a liability to the operation of business as usual. But the power structures in Washington and Cairo can’t afford to have him simply forced from office by popular will; what kind of example would that set? Instead they will seek to use the months until Mubarak’s envisaged retirement in September to beat down the uprising by overt means – as we are seeing on the streets of Egypt’s cities today – and covert means, with the piecemeal arrest of various dissident leaders and other crackdowns on activities that might “threaten public order.”

Whether they will succeed in this is still an open question; but things have taken a decidedly darker turn in Egypt. And a great deal of that darkness is being cast by the ever-looming shadow of Washington’s Domination Machine. *AbuKhalil has provided some of the most insightful and informed observations on the uprising in Egypt. Below are a few excerpts from several of his recent posts that throw light on the current situation.

A Western correspondent in Cairo told me that Mubarak goons targeted many reporters and that they also sexually harassed female protesters.  Those goons and criminals are the linchpin of Obama's Middle East policy. ...

There are a lot of similarities already between Iran of 1953 and Egypt of 2011.  Don't forget what happened in 1953 in Iran. The CIA then hired armed goons and thugs to defeat the pro-democracy movement.  This time around, the armed goons are hired by the regime itself. ...

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2083-loosing-the-goons-the-mubarak-obama-move-to-crush-egypts-uprising-.html

Gus: of course the concept here is that the West is trying hard to impose a "democratic style" that is as far away as a Muslim democracy as possible, unless it's one that is "moderate" and does what it is told. The problem with democracy is that the majority (50 per cent plus one — or more) of people get to choose what style of democracy a country is going to have. Iran style of democracy is annoying to the West. The West would not like to see Egypt go the same direction — whether it is democratic or not... So, the will of the people becomes secondary in the battle for ruling — majority or not...

Thousands of Egyptians are gathering again in Cairo to stage a "day of departure" for President Hosni Mubarak.

There is an increased army presence in Tahrir Square, after days of unrest that has led to hundreds of casualties.

The defence minister joined the armed forces and the atmosphere was said to be relaxed as Friday prayers were held.

Mr Mubarak has said he is "fed up" with being in power but is resisting mounting pressure to resign as he says it would leave Egypt in chaos.

In his first interview since anti-government protests began, he told ABC News he would like to resign immediately. But he repeated that the country's Islamist opposition - the Muslim Brotherhood - would fill the power vacuum left by his absence.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12362826

US Vice-President Joe Biden spoke to his Egyptian counterpart on Thursday, say diplomats, a day after Mr Suleiman had similar talks with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The New York Times suggested that among the proposals was a plan for Mr Mubarak to resign immediately and hand power to a military-backed interim government under Mr Suleiman.

Neither the White House nor the state department have directly denied the report.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12362826

O'Reilly has the smirk of a welshing Irish bookmaker. Beck looks like a child's inflatable swimming pool toy, with an IQ to match. Together, they were ''analysing'' the demonstrations on the streets of Cairo, in infantile terms.

''Mubarak: bad guy!'' announced O'Reilly. ''But then he's our guy.''

''It's the Marxist communists [sic] and the jihadists doing all this stuff,'' said the pool toy.

They would not recognise it but these two dolts unwittingly put their finger on the central fault line of American foreign policy.

President John Kennedy's inauguration promise in 1961 that the US would ''pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty'' turned out to be one of the great swindles of the past century.

Liberty be damned. In the 50 years since, successive presidents have funded and encouraged some of the worst tyrants of our time, for as long as they were professed anti-communists and usefully ''our guys''. Diem of South Vietnam, Marcos in the Philippines, Suharto in Indonesia, Verwoerd in South Africa, Pinochet in Chile, the Shah of Iran and the vile Saudi royal family spring immediately to mind.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/flatearthers-its-time-for-a-cold-shower-20110204-1agt8.html

see toon at top...

Anti-government demonstrators in Egypt have staged one of their biggest rallies yet as international pressure grows on president Hosni Mubarak to step down.

Dubbed "departure day", the centre of the Egyptian capital Cairo filled with tens of thousands of people chanting and calling for Mr Mubarak's immediate resignation.

Soldiers are guarding the area to limit disruption by pro-government supporters.

Mr Mubarak has said he is "fed up" and would like to leave office, but he has to stay on until the September election as his immediate resignation would cause chaos.

But as protests enter their 12th day, United States president Barack Obama has delivered his strongest statement Mr Mubarak should step down immediately.

While stopping short of explicitly calling for the Egyptian president's resignation, Mr Obama said Mr Murbarak needs to listen to the will of the people.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/05/3130706.htm

CAIRO — We had been detained by Egyptian authorities, handed over to the country’s dreaded Mukhabarat, the secret police, and interrogated. They left us all night in a cold room, on hard orange plastic stools, under fluorescent lights.

But our discomfort paled in comparison to the dull whacks and the screams of pain by Egyptian people that broke the stillness of the night. In one instance, between the cries of suffering, an officer said in Arabic, “You are talking to journalists? You are talking badly about your country?”

A voice, also in Arabic, answered: “You are committing a sin. You are committing a sin.”

We — Souad Mekhennet, Nicholas Kulish and a driver, who is not a journalist and not involved in the demonstrations — were detained Thursday afternoon while driving into Cairo. We were stopped at a checkpoint and thus began a 24-hour journey through Egyptian detention, ending with — we were told by the soldiers who delivered us there — the secret police. When asked, they declined to identify themselves.

Captivity was terrible. We felt powerless — uncertain about where and how long we would be held. But the worst part had nothing to do with our treatment. It was seeing — and in particular hearing through the walls of this dreadful facility — the abuse of Egyptians at the hands of their own government.

For one day, we were trapped in the brutal maze where Egyptians are lost for months or even years. Our detainment threw into haunting relief the abuses of security services, the police, the secret police and the intelligence service, and explained why they were at the forefront of complaints made by the protesters.

Many journalists shared this experience, and many were kept in worse conditions — some suffering from injuries as well.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, over the period we were held there were 30 detentions of journalists, 26 assaults and 8 instances of equipment being seized. We saw a journalist with his head bandaged and others brought in with jackets thrown over their heads as they were led by armed men.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/weekinreview/06held.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

US special envoy Frank Wisner has said that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak should remain in power to oversee a transition to democracy.

The remarks appear to contradict previous US calls for Mr Mubarak to begin an immediate transition.

The state department has not yet commented.

Mr Wisner also welcomed the resignation of Egypt's ruling party politburo. Senior figures including Mr Mubarak's son Gamal have left their posts.

Hossam Badrawi, a reformer and top physician, took the post of head of the policies committee, held by Gamal, and that of secretary-general.

Protesters still occupy Cairo's Tahrir Square, but their numbers have fallen from Friday's huge rally.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12374753

 see toon at top...

The US state department has distanced itself from comments by a US special envoy, to the effect that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak should stay in office during a power transition.

Spokesman Philip Crowley said Frank Wisner's views were his own, and not co-ordinated with the US government.

Hundreds of protesters are refusing to leave Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Mr Mubarak has vowed to stand down in September. Earlier, he replaced the leadership of his ruling party.

The entire politburo including his son Gamal lost their jobs.

Hossam Badrawi, a reformer and top physician, took the post of head of the policies committee, held by Gamal Mubarak, and that of secretary-general.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12374753

Gus: this is a "normal" diplomatic position with a foot in both camps... see toon at top.

Twelve days into an uprising in Egypt that threatens to upend American strategy in the Middle East, the Obama administration is struggling to determine if a democratic revolution can succeed while President Hosni Mubarak remains in office, even if his powers are neutered and he is sidelined from negotiations over the country’s future.

The latest challenge came Saturday afternoon when the man sent last weekend by President Obama to persuade the 82-year-old leader to step out of the way, Frank G. Wisner, told a group of diplomats and security experts that “President Mubarak’s continued leadership is critical — it’s his opportunity to write his own legacy.”

Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton immediately tried to recalibrate those remarks, repeating the latest iteration of the administration’s evolving strategy. At a minimum, she said, Mr. Mubarak must move out of the way so that his vice president, Omar Suleiman, can engage in talks with protest leaders over everything from constitutional changes to free and fair elections.

It is hardly the first time the Obama administration has seemed uncertain on its feet during the Egyptian crisis, as it struggles to stay on the right side of history and to avoid accelerating a revolution that could spin out of control.

The mixed messages have been confusing and at times embarrassing — a reflection of a policy that, by necessity, has been made up on the fly. “This is what happens when you get caught by surprise,” said one American official, who would not speak on the record. “We’ve had endless strategy sessions for the past two years on Mideast peace, on containing Iran. And how many of them factored in the possibility that Egypt,” and presumably whatever dominoes follow it, “moves from stability to turmoil? None.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/middleeast/06policy.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

good cop bad cop routine... see toon at top...

As Arab regimes struggle with demonstrations fueled by Twitter and Al Jazeera, and U.S. diplomats try to understand the impact of WikiLeaks, it is clear that this global information age will require a more sophisticated understanding of how power works in world politics.

Two types of power shifts are occurring in this century: power transition and power diffusion. The transition of power from one dominant state to another is a familiar historical pattern, but power diffusion is a more novel process. The problem for all states today is that more is happening outside the control of even the most powerful of them.

As for power transition, much attention nowadays is lavished on a supposed U.S. decline, often with facile historical analogies to Britain and Rome. But Rome remained dominant for more than three centuries after the apogee of its power, and, even then, it did not succumb to the rise of another state, but suffered a death by a thousand cuts inflicted by various barbarian tribes.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/the-reality-of-virtual-power/430367.html

A month ago most Americans could not have picked Hosni Mubarak out of a police lineup. American foreign policy, even in Afghanistan, was all but invisible throughout the 2010 election season. Foreign aid is the only federal budget line that a clear-cut majority of Americans says should be cut. And so now — as the world’s most unstable neighborhood explodes before our eyes — does anyone seriously believe that most Americans are up to speed? Our government may be scrambling, but that’s nothing compared to its constituents. After a near-decade of fighting wars in the Arab world, we can still barely distinguish Sunni from Shia.

The live feed from Egypt is riveting. We can’t get enough of revolution video — even if, some nights, Middle West blizzards take precedence over Middle East battles on the networks’ evening news. But more often than not we have little or no context for what we’re watching. That’s the legacy of years of self-censored, superficial, provincial and at times Islamophobic coverage of the Arab world in a large swath of American news media. Even now we’re more likely to hear speculation about how many cents per gallon the day’s events might cost at the pump than to get an intimate look at the demonstrators’ lives.

Perhaps the most revealing window into America’s media-fed isolation from this crisis — small an example as it may seem — is the default assumption that the Egyptian uprising, like every other paroxysm in the region since the Green Revolution in Iran 18 months ago, must be powered by the twin American-born phenomena of Twitter and Facebook. Television news — at once threatened by the power of the Internet and fearful of appearing unhip — can’t get enough of this cliché.

Three days after riot police first used tear gas and water hoses to chase away crowds in Tahrir Square, CNN’s new prime-time headliner, Piers Morgan, declared that “the use of social media” was “the most fascinating aspect of this whole revolution.” On MSNBC that same night, Lawrence O’Donnell interviewed a teacher who had spent a year at the American school in Cairo. “They are all on Facebook,” she said of her former fifth-grade students. The fact that a sampling of fifth graders in the American school might be unrepresentative of, and wholly irrelevant to, the events unfolding in the streets of Cairo never entered the equation.

The social networking hype eventually had to subside for a simple reason: The Egyptian government pulled the plugon its four main Internet providers and yet the revolution only got stronger.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/opinion/06rich.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

WASHINGTON — Vice President Omar Suleiman of Egypt says he does not think it is time to lift the 30-year emergency law that has been used to suppress and imprison opposition leaders. He does not think President Hosni Mubarak needs to resign before his term ends in September. And he does not think his country is yet ready for democracy.

But, concluding that it lacks better options, the United States is backing him for a pivotal role. In doing so, it is relying on the existing regime to make changes it has steadfastly resisted for years, and even now does not seem impatient to implement.

After two weeks of recalibrated messages and efforts to keep up with a rapidly evolving situation, the Obama administration is still trying to balance support for some of the basic aspirations for change in Egypt with its concern that the pro-democracy movement could be “hijacked,” as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton put it, if change were to come too quickly.

The result has been to feed a perception, on the streets of Cairo and elsewhere, that the United States, for now at least, is putting stability ahead of democratic ideals, and leaving hopes of nurturing peaceful, gradual change in large part in the hands of Egyptian officials — starting with Mr. Suleiman — who have every reason to slow the process.

Faced with questions about Mr. Suleiman’s views, expressed in a series of interviews in recent days, the White House on Monday called them unacceptable.

“The notion that Egypt isn’t ready for democracy I think runs quite counter to what we see happening in Tahrir Square and on the streets in cities throughout the country,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/world/middleeast/08diplomacy.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

As they compare notes at the end of each day, Hosni Mubarak and his crony the Vice-President, Omar Suleiman, must chortle at Washington's re-imagining of Dr Dolittle's pushmi-pullyu as a viable policy process by which to oust a dictator who stands between his 80 million subjects and a new democracy.

The fictional animal had a head at each end of its body, so that one was always trying to pull in the opposite direction to the other. But Hosni and Omar will be splitting their sides over the Obama administration's efforts to graft heads to their Egyptian pushmi-pullyu.

When the protests began, Hillary Clinton pleaded ''stability''. As the street crowds showed more fervour, Barack Obama decided that Mubarak must go - ''orderly transition … must begin now''.

At the weekend, Frank Wisner, the go-between sent to Cairo by Obama to personally deliver his ''game's over'' message to the dictator, became Mubarak's ventriloquist's doll, telling a security conference in Munich that ''President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical - it's his opportunity to write his own legacy''.

But if the Wisner wisecrack had them chuckling, then it has to be assumed that the Egyptian President and his consigliere were rolling on the floor as they digested Clinton's warning on Sunday of the dangers of rushing to a new election without a cumbersome rewriting of the Egyptian constitution.

Imagine the scene. ''The what?'' Mubarak asks in disbelief. ''The constitution,'' Suleiman replies.

''You mean,'' Mubarak snorts, ''that after 30 years of us ignoring the constitution, she now wants to abide by it, and to leave us in charge of the process?''

But Suleiman has more to report. By the time he gives a bullet-points account of his recent press interviews, Mubarak is laughing like a drain.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/hosni-and-omar-lap-up-american-comedy-20110208-1aln9.html

From Robert Fisk

To the horror of Egyptians and the world, President Hosni Mubarak – haggard and apparently disoriented – appeared on state television last night to refuse every demand of his opponents by staying in power for at least another five months. The Egyptian army, which had already initiated a virtual coup d'état, was nonplussed by the President's speech which had been widely advertised – by both his friends and his enemies – as a farewell address after 30 years of dictatorship. The vast crowds in Tahrir Square were almost insane with anger and resentment.

Mubarak tried – unbelievably – to placate his infuriated people with a promise to investigate the killings of his opponents in what he called "the unfortunate, tragic events", apparently unaware of the mass fury directed at his dictatorship for his three decades of corruption, brutality and repression.

The old man had originally appeared ready to give up, faced at last with the rage of millions of Egyptians and the power of history, sealed off from his ministers like a bacillus, only grudgingly permitted by his own army from saying goodbye to the people who hated him.

...

The events of the past 12 hours have not, alas, been a victory for the West. American and European leaders who rejoiced at the fall of communist dictatorships have sat glumly regarding the extraordinary and wildly hopeful events in Cairo – a victory of morality over corruption and cruelty – with the same enthusiasm as many East European dictators watched the fall of their Warsaw Pact nations. Calls for stability and an "orderly" transition of power were, in fact, appeals for Mubarak to stay in power – as he is still trying to do – rather than a ringing endorsement of the demands of the overwhelming pro-democracy movement that should have struck him down.

Hosni Mubarak has stepped down as president of Egypt, after weeks of protest in Cairo and other cities.

The news was greeted with a huge outburst of joy and celebration by thousands in Cairo's Tahrir Square - the heart of the demonstrations.

Mr Mubarak ruled for 30 years, suppressing dissent and protest, and jailing opponents.

US President Barack Obama said that Egypt must now move to civilian and democratic rule.

This was not the end but the beginning and there were difficult days ahead, he added, but he was confident the people could find the answers.

"The people of Egypt have spoken, their voices have been heard," he said. "Egypt will never be the same again."

"They have made it clear that nothing less than genuine democracy will carry the day."

'God help everybody'

Announcing Mr Mubarak's resignation, Vice-President Omar Suleiman said the president had handed power to the army.

Mr Suleiman said on state TV that the high command of the armed forces had taken over.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12433045

Frank Wisner, President Barack Obama's envoy to Cairo who infuriated the White House this weekend by urging Hosni Mubarak to remain President of Egypt, works for a New York and Washington law firm which works for the dictator's own Egyptian government.

Mr Wisner's astonishing remarks – "President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical: it's his opportunity to write his own legacy" – shocked the democratic opposition in Egypt and called into question Mr Obama's judgement, as well as that of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The US State Department and Mr Wisner himself have now both claimed that his remarks were made in a "personal capacity". But there is nothing "personal" about Mr Wisner's connections with the litigation firm Patton Boggs, which openly boasts that it advises "the Egyptian military, the Egyptian Economic Development Agency, and has handled arbitrations and litigation on the [Mubarak] government's behalf in Europe and the US". Oddly, not a single journalist raised this extraordinary connection with US government officials – nor the blatant conflict of interest it appears to represent.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/revealed-us-envoys-business-link-to-egypt-2206329.html

Epitaphs for the Mubarak government all note that the mobilizing power of the Internet was one of the Egyptian opposition’s most potent weapons. But quickly lost in the swirl of revolution was the government’s ferocious counterattack, a dark achievement that many had thought impossible in the age of global connectedness. In a span of minutes just after midnight on Jan. 28, a technologically advanced, densely wired country with more than 20 million people online was essentially severed from the global Internet.

The blackout was lifted after just five days, and it did not save President Hosni Mubarak. But it has mesmerized the worldwide technical community and raised concerns that with unrest coursing through the Middle East, other autocratic governments — many of them already known to interfere with and filter specific Web sites and e-mails — may also possess what is essentially a kill switch for the Internet.

Because the Internet’s legendary robustness and ability to route around blockages are part of its basic design, even the world’s most renowned network and telecommunications engineers have been perplexed that the Mubarak government succeeded in pulling the maneuver off.

But now, as Egyptian engineers begin to assess fragmentary evidence and their own knowledge of the Egyptian Internet’s construction, they are beginning to understand what, in effect, hit them. Interviews with many of those engineers, as well as an examination of data collected around the world during the blackout, indicate that the government exploited a devastating combination of vulnerabilities in the national infrastructure.

For all the Internet’s vaunted connectivity, the Egyptian government commanded powerful instruments of control: it owns the pipelines that carry information across the country and out into the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/technology/16internet.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

From Robert fisk

While 50 million Egyptians were waiting yesterday to hear that they had elected a Muslim Brotherhood mediocrity over a Mubarak bag-carrier, I paid a visit to the home of Saad Zaghloul. Not for an interview, you understand (Zaghloul died 85 years ago and is buried opposite his house in a mausoleum styled like a pharaonic temple) but as a pilgrimage to a man who might have served Egypt well today, a revolutionary and a nationalist whose Wafd party stood up to the British empire and whose wife, Safeya, was one of the country's great feminists.

Mohamed Morsi is no revolutionary. No feminist. Not much of a nationalist. And the army elite has already laid its traps for him. But the "deep state" represented by his opponent, Ahmed Shafik, receded yesterday. Up to a point – and only up to a point – Zaghloul would have approved.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-mohamed-morsi-is-no-revolutionary-and-not-much-of-a-nationalist-the-army-elite-has-already-laid-traps-for-him-7879773.html