Mubarak To Leave

In an address to the Egyptians, Mubarak said he will not run in the September election.

The question of whether an 8 month delay in leaving Egypt will be enough for most of the protesters will be answered pretty soon, I guess. In Tunisia, Ali's promise to leave in a few years was not enough.

Let's hope that Mubarak can be eased out. Let's get moving, with allies and international institutions, to set up enough civil institutions to make the election reasonably free and legitimate.

I'll be content if we dodged a bullet as far as bad results go. We have a shot, I think, of getting that.

UPDATE: President Obama spoke, too. I hope he managed to navigate this crisis without losing Egypt. Kudos if he did. We only have one president, and I want him to successfully lead us abroad.

So far, I'm hopeful. I don't know if Mubarak can really stay until September, but who knows how Egyptians will feel in the morning and the days that follow. I'd think a lot would be relieved to declare victory and go home.

On another subject, can we really threaten to suspend our aid package to Egypt to leverage good behavior in the months to come? I always had the impression that it was hard-wired in (secretly) as a result of the Camp David Accords as basically a bribe to stop fighting Israel. Not that this has ever been publicly mentioned, but that's what I thought our aid was. So as long as Egypt abides by the peace treaty, our money flows. Perhaps I'm wrong, but that's what I thought the situation was.