The head of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency also said it was likely Mubarak would step down in the next few hours.
"There's a strong likelihood that Mubarak may step down this evening, which would be significant in terms of where the, hopefully, orderly transition in Egypt takes place," Leon Panetta told a congressional hearing in Washington.
The resignation of Mubarak has been the visible goal that protesters have unified around, despite the spread of opinion on what they want after Mubarak. Agreeing on what they didn't want was the easy part.
The army wants to survive this confrontation, and getting rid of the focus of popular discontent is the best choice:
"The army is facing the choice between standing with Mubarak and perhaps being swept aside or going with the popular flow. I think they will give away Mubarak almost as a fig leaf. Possibly (Vice President Omar) Suleiman as well, although he is not as unpopular as Mubarak. There is an element of regime preservation going on here from the army elite," Julien Barnes-Dacey, a Middle East analyst at Control Risks in London, told Reuters.
The army leadership had to worry about whether mid-grade officers and rank and file troops would hold up in a street confrontation with the protesters. Apparently, as has seemed clear from the beginning, they don't want to risk that. The street-level war of attrition risked fragmenting the army in a crisis that it could not contain.
Now we have to get really engaged to make sure they get the opportunity to elect good men.
As scary as the bad outcomes could be, which alone is reason enough to stay involved in what happens in Egypt, this is an opportunity, too. Fight for freedom in Egypt.
UPDATE: Minutes later, the military is taking over--hopefully for a transition period before new and free elections. We have some influence with this institution, fortunately. And hopefully it can keep the Moslem Brotherhood out of the government.
UPDATE: I may have been hasty in saying we can focus on the next crisis in Egypt given this idiocy from the administration:
During a House Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called Egypt's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood movement "largely secular."
Is he freaking kidding? These people cannot be trusted with power. The idea that they are largely secular--as if they are the Brotherhood of Egyptians Who Happen to Be Muslem--is insane. Are we following policies based on this folderol? Do our people really perhaps believe these nutballs are just one outreach away from being reset?
I've avoided condemning the Obama administration over this crisis because I don't know nearly enough about what we are doing to say it is right or wrong. Nor am I conceited enough to say I know exactly what we should do as a tactical matter even if I had perfect knowledge of conditions on the ground.
But the idea that the Moslem Brotherhood is fairly harmless and can be worked with is just idiotic.
UPDATE: Breaking news as of 3:00 pm is that he is not resigning. Perhaps the talk of him technically not resigning but going to Germany for health care is the way things are going to play out.
UPDATE: Mubarak transferring power to his newly minted vice president--but not leaving Egypt. We'll see how many protesters think this is good enough. And we'll see how long the security forces will tolerate the protests if they continue.
UPDATE: I worry that the stalemate at low levels of violence can't hold. One side is going to break ranks or, worrying they will break, strike at the other side first. In a perfect world, the protesters would accept what they've achieved so far--unimaginable even a couple weeks ago--and go home for the next phase of preparing the stage for real elections. And we'd help with that.
But the only thing the protesters agree on at this point is that Mubarak must visibly go, somehow, and Mubarak's speech probably just unified the protesters to stay in the streets.
The army is probably too fragile to hold together if the levels of violence escalate. If the army fractures, the deluge will follow. And then it becomes way more difficult to influence events in Egypt to end up with something we can live with.
UPDATE: Still, perhaps the army can manage to defend public places and so avoid having to make a clear decision to fight or help the demonstrators. After all, we really haven't seen the paramilitary police on the streets for quite some time. Could these police guys who are used to fighting civilians be unleashed on the protesters without provoking the army's lower levels to break?
