Mubarak Steps Down: the Revolution’s Beginning

Mubarak Steps Down

By John Hudson

After 18 days of protests, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has resigned relinquishing power to the military. The announcement brought on a flurry of jubilation in the streets of Cairo, as demonstrators cried "Egypt is free!" The Egyptian military, meanwhile, released a statement promising to implement constitutional reforms with the suggestion that vice president Omar Suleiman would take over in the interim.

Updates and analysis are streaming in from Twitter and around the web:

The Washington Post describes a euphoric celebration:

Pandemonium broke out as huge throngs of demonstrators realized they had acheived their goal. Egyptians jumped up and down, pumped their fists, waved their flags and hugged each other, jubilant that they had forced Mubarak's removal after 30 years of authoritarian rule...
In neighborhoods across Cairo, people stopped cars, getting out to hug and kiss each other. They shouted, "God is great," and "Congratulations," honking their horns in celebration.

The Wall Street Journal notes an impending air of political confusion:

The resignation was the culmination of nearly three weeks of protests that rocked Egypt and send shudders through the region. It opens a period of uncertaintly, however, not only for Egypt, which will have to manage a period of military rule, but for countries like Saudi Arabia, Israel and the U.S., for whom Mr. Mubarak has formed a key anchor of their policies toward the Middle East.

ABC News adds context:

The surprise statement [makes Mubarak] the second Arab leader forced to resign by a remarkable populist and largely peaceful uprising. Last month, Tunisia's president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali resigned and left the country in the face of massive street protests against his regime.

The New York Times sheds light on the challenges the military now faces:

Mubarak's] departure leaves the military in charge of this nation of 80 million, facing insistent calls for fundamental democratic change and open elections. The military, which has repeatedly promised to respond to the demands of protesters, has little recent experience of directly governing the country. It will have to defuse demonstrations and strikes that have paralyzed the economy and left many of the country’s institutions, including state media and the security forces, in shambles.

Chris Cassidy at The American Prospect worries about what comes next for Egyptian elections:

Under the Egyptian constitution, the president's resignation mandates elections within two months. Suleiman previously stated that Egyptian democracy first requires "the culture of democracy." What that means, and whether the military will endorse Suleiman's previous warning has yet to be seen. In his 20-second speech today, Suleiman made no mention of democracy or elections.

Wired's Spencer Ackerman speaks to the perseverance of protesters and the media:

Neither violent repression nor an Internet shutdown nor mass arrests of Facebook-fueled human rights activists could stop what’s become the #Jan25 revolution. Al Jazeera was blamed for the protests by Suleiman and its reporters were physically attacked and detained, but the network went to round-the-clock coverage that kept pressure on Mubarak.

The Cato Institute offers its libertarian take and congratulates President Obama:

These protests were driven by popular discontent with Mubarak, rising food prices, rampant corruption, and limited political and economic opportunity. The Obama administration generally resisted calls to place the United States in the middle of what was a purely internal matter.

Those who called for a heavy-handed U.S. role in this whole affair—many of them the same people who have called for U.S. intervention in dozens of other places over the the past few decades—have been proven wrong once again. While the ideas of liberty are universal, the spark for change, and the energy that carries it forward, must come from within. The Egyptian people started this, and the Egyptian people should finish it.

Where will Mubarak go from here? Christopher Davidson, professor of Middle East studies at Britain's Durham University, speculates:

He'll be headed to the Gulf for sure. Perhaps not to Saudi like Ben Ali, but I think he'll go to the UAE. [UAE Foreign Minister] Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed visited Cairo quite publicly and likely put a plan on the table to give him refuge.

Foreign Policy's David Rothkop emphasizes caution:

While the drama unfolding in Egypt today is profound and powerful, it clearly marks the end of only the first scene of the first act of what will be long twisting drama. Many questions hang in the air about what comes next. What will the transition look like? Will the army truly allow the emergence of a pluralistic, representative model government? Will the interim government have the savvy to present such a road map early enough to placate activists? Will the process be transparent enough? Will international observers be invited to monitor elections? Will real democracy be supported by broader changes than just in election laws?

Commentary's Max Boot offers a word of advise for other oppressed peoples:

There is a lesson here for those not too fanatical or deluded to learn it. Put down the bomb, the sniper rifle, whatever weapon you have, and grab a placard, go on Twitter, organize a rally. True, many peaceful protests have been repressed too, as we have seen most recently in Iran; but they offer a much surer road to regime change than does blowing up innocent people.

The New York Times Nick Kristof worries that the military won't implement real reform:

I worry that senior generals may want to keep (with some changes) a Mubarak-style government without Mubarak. In essence the regime may have decided that Mubarak had become a liability and thrown him overboard — without any intention of instituting the kind of broad, meaningful democracy that the public wants. Senior generals have enriched themselves and have a stake in a political and economic structure that is profoundly unfair and oppressive. And remember that the military running things directly really isn’t that different from what has been happening: Mubarak’s government was a largely military regime (in civilian clothes) even before this. Mubarak, Vice President Suleiman and so many others — including nearly all the governors — are career military men.

Notes from the Twitterverse: The moment hits home to Rawya Rageh, an Al Jazeera English reporter currently in Egypt:  "I was born the week Mubarak assumed power - in all my life I have never seen the streets of Egypt erupt like this." Habiba Hamid, a journalist at The National, points to the roots of the protests. "The region owes one Tunisian fruit-seller a great deal today," he tweets, referring to the Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire, sparking that country's protests. Nadia El-Awady, a journalist and activist in Cairo tweets: "I have cried my heart out today. So happy we stood our ground and didnt let our martyrs down."

(Source: Atlantic Wire)

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Egypt’s Revolution is Just the Beginning

By Kenneth Pollack

(CNN) -- Egyptians deserve their time to celebrate. Hosni Mubarak's resignation is a dramatic victory for the protest movement born so suddenly on January 25. As recently as a few weeks ago, few Egyptians -- if any --could conceive of such a thing. As Americans, we should only bask in their reflected joy and allow them this moment to revel in what they have accomplished.

But the celebration cannot go on for too long because there is still much to be done if they are to realize their dreams of a prosperous, modern, democratic Egypt.

Mubarak's exit cannot be seen as the ultimate triumph of Egypt's pro-democracy protest movement, although it is an important victory on the way. Egypt's problems began before Mubarak, and they will not end with his ouster. Instead, they are the product of a corrupt, stagnant and oppressive system which Mubarak helped to build but now extends beyond his own person.

And large elements of that system remain in place. The Egyptian military, particularly its senior officers and intelligence leadership, have been critical pillars of that system, and neither we nor the Egyptian people know whether they are ready to accept the far more important and expansive demands for democratization, rule of law and economic reform that the protesters (and so many Egyptians) desire.

This is particularly critical since it is the military itself which must continue to play the vital role of holding the nation together, preventing a descent into chaos, fending off more radical elements that seek to hijack the revolution and overseeing a peaceful transition to democracy.

What's more it is a process that will take years to get right, no matter how soon it starts, and the Army will have to remain patient with the trials of a new democracy throughout. While many (myself included) point to Turkey as a rough model, we should all remember that the Turkish military lost patience with democracy too many times in the past during its long transition.

There is another danger lurking, namely that conservative elements within the regime may believe that sacrificing Mubarak will allow them to avoid the wider reforms that the protesters seek. They may well assume that they can make Mubarak their scapegoat, and that the ferocity he has stirred in so many Egyptian souls will be expiated by his departure.

They may believe that his resignation will sate the anger of most Egyptians, who will then lose their interest in the protests and go back to their jobs and their lives, effectively taking the wind out of the sails of the protest movement, and marginalizing the hard core that remain.

After all, those who oppose the protesters have been playing for time ever since their half-baked effort to crush the protests failed. They doubtlessly believe that the protesters and opposition leaders, such as they are, can more easily be dealt with if they have lost the leverage of labor strikes, million-strong marches and the international media attention they bring.

Certainly the strategy of this regime in years past has been to promise modest reforms in times of stress and then to simply fail to deliver when passions cooled and external pressure moved on. No one should assume that Mubarak's resignation will mean the end of opposition from the vestiges of Mubarak's regime. The regime can endure, and those who benefited most from it may well plan to fight on without him.

Thus, the real challenge for the protest movement still lies ahead. Can they maintain popular backing to force the regime to make key concessions on the nature of governance in Egypt, like ending the national emergency laws, establishing a committee to revise the constitution manned by respected opposition leaders, limiting the regime's authority over civil liberties and enacting far-reaching legislation until a new president and parliament can be elected under a new constitution?

If they cannot maintain popular support in the form of continuing demonstrations until they can secure those or other similarly meaningful curbs on the regime's powers, they run a very significant risk of failure.

Mubarak's fall is a great triumph for the Egyptian people, and they have earned their right to celebrate. But it does not signal "mission accomplished." It cannot be the end of their struggles, for if it is, it will also be the end of their dreams.

(Source: CNN)