I wrote the following comment on a liberal blog and I would have thought it would not apply on a site where some people actually make decisions about such things, but reading the thread, I thought it may even fit here:
My ex-boss was Egyptian. We talked at times about Egypt and he was rather pessimistic. Per his report, the culture of officialdom in Egypt is very primitive and authoritarian (even by South Asian standards). The general solution to everything is to round up the usual suspects and beat the #### out of them. And many people outside of the army also seem to think thats pretty much a good idea. And the conspiracy theories... They outdo anything one can sample in Pakistan or India. One can devise a "conspiracy meter" to rank countries in terms of their literate population's eagerness to believe incredible bull#### (of course all such statements are RELATIVE statements...i accept that I or Americans or Japanese or whatever probably believe a lot of BS conspiracies too..but there is BS and then there is absolutely incredible BS). Egypt would rank high on that ranking. My boss had proposed (and had funding) for a DNA study of one huge inbred rural family near his home village. He couldnt get permission to do it because Egyptian officials were (seriously, totally seriously, not just "waiting for baksheesh" seriously) afraid that their DNA would end up in some computer where Israelis could access it and then devise Egyptian-specific biological weapons. In a way, thats amazingly far-sighted. But also stupid. Anyway, Egypt seems in for a lot of violence. And everyone who is not Egyptian will get their chance to blame their pet villians, from mad Muslims to bad Amrika to the elders of Zion. Those killing and dying will care little for our status updates and comments, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do...
Its a sad situation. But not totally unexpected. The army on one side, the brothers on the other. And many outsiders ready to stir the pot. Peace would be a miracle.