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There are certainly problems with Egypt under Mubarak. Many are problems common to any Islamic country, since an Islamic culture by its nature is incapable of being free and productive either politically or economically. And some are problems with his very rigid regime.

The biggest problem, however, is that it almost had to be rigid and oppressive in order to prevent Islamist forces from taking over. I suspect that this current “uprising” is not going to result in a flowering of democracy and capitalism, but in a takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood or some other fundamentalist Islamic group, just as it did in Iran.

This is very dangerous; for one thing, Egypt is much better armed than Iran was in 1979, and because of their victories over the Great Satan and coupled with Obama’s complaisant attitude, the Islamists are much bolder and more aggressive than they were then.

The problem is that the Islamists are the only ones offering an alternative to the dictators. If there were a third way, a democratic movement, I think a lot of people would get behind it. The key here is a strong personality that people can get behind. They desperately need a Lech Walesa or Vaclav Havel.

coupled with Obama’s complaisant attitude

He's spent the last two years passing out other peoples money to his friends. That's all he's done, and the world is falling apart all around us. I don't know whether he deliberately wants Armageddon ( he thinks he's the 12th Emom? ), or the man is so incompetent, Armageddon will arrive through his ignorance.

(Anyway, his actions do support the Antichrist theory. He "destroys wonderfully.")

Very true. The Islamic countries of the Middle East are not going to be free in any case; the best we can hope for is political authoritarianism that is not unduly abusive and that supports a reasonably modern society. Jimmy Carter thought Khomeini would make a better leader for Iran than the Shah because the Ayatollah was a deeply religious man. Boy, did that naive fool Carter learn, and boy, did we all. Bringing full democracy to a backwards country, especially one full of Islamic fanaticism, is likewise a bad idea. You're liable to set up a situation of one man, one vote, once. Good thing Carter, with his foolish human rights program that undermined a number of our (necessarily) hardnosed allies, was unseated by Reagan, a wise realist who understood the need to support some unpleasant authoritarians when the alternative was not freedom, but rather the far greater evil of totalitarianism. Of course, he had at his side the brilliant Jean Kirkpatrick, the author of Dictatorships and Double Standards.

The sad thing about America’s friends in the region has been their utter callousness for the most part about the emancipation of their people - economically, socially, politically.

The 64Trillion question about this part of the world - are the secular forces strong and numerous enough to combat the propensity of the majority of the population to see Islam as the solution for governance - in Tunisia, I do think so, but it’s a small country with borders predating colonialism and a strong civil society not subject to the retrograde influences of the Mullahs.

Irony alert - Tunisia’s PM was refused asylum by Sarkozy despite the two playing kissypoo a couple of months ago.

So where’s the PM who banned the veil ended up?

Saudi Arabia!
I did see a brief shot of red and white kaffiyeh clad demonstrators - that means Saudi Wahhabi Salafis.

In Egypt, I fear the Muslim Brotherhood is poised for power.

However noble the task of encouraging dissent, as we have seen, Teheran 1979, the “Bolsheviks” can take over from the “Mensheviks”, being better organised and motivated.