Egypt's Spring Revolution (2011-2013)

[Dayuhan]

Down to the bottom, brutal reality is that "Sarah Palin" has more to say about the future Egyptian president, than 79.999.996 Egyptians...

That's the essence - also that of what's currently going on in Egypt. Stay tunned, the "Super Bowl match" between the teams of "Egyptian Opposition" led by coaches Obama and Clinton on one side, vs. "Mubarak", led by coaches Netanyahu and AIPAC on the other, is going to be continued "right after this"....

I think you're substantially overstating the extent of US influence... and if the Israelis had influence of their own to use inside Egypt, they wouldn't be shrieking frantically and fruitlessly for the US to do their bidding. Times change.

I sometimes wonder who will miss the declining American influence more, the Americans who wielded it or the critics who used it to explain everything that happened in the world. Things will be more complex without a clear bogeyman, and we may have to actually exert ourselves and try to understand the full range of forces at play. Even at the peak of US power there were many other forces involved, and the US was manipulated as often as it manipulated others, often with greater success.

For Egypt, of course, the hard part begins when Mubarak leaves. Transitions out of dictatorship are far from easy, especially if democracy comes into the picture, which it may or may not in this case. Popular expectations will be very high and government capacity is likely to be very low, a stressful combination. We're halfway through chapter one, and it's likely to be quite the saga.