Two valuable points of view about Egypt.
One from Iman Satori, an American woman married to an Egyptian ,gives her view of the street, the ordinary people behind this revolution. The hopeful thing in her post is that the people seem anything but radical. Rather they seem like eastern Europeans at the dawn of Solidarity, tired of a foreign, colonial regime.
The other, from Haaretz’ Zvi Bar’el has the most thoughtful essay I have as yet seen on thow peaceful reform might happen. The key part of his essay is that Mubark has attempted to create a civil society but have not been able to create a democratic one. The question is, without democracy, can Egypt find a path to something other than a prolonged chaos or yet another military dictatorship?
One idea not discussed by Bar’el is that the American trained military might be a force for good? Could the military offer the stability needed to creeate a democracy uner el Baredi or Suleiman???
Even if a consensus candidate were to be miraculously found, Egypt’s constitution would have to be changed in order to enable someone from outside the ruling party to lead the country, and that would require the agreement of a parliament in the iron grip of that party. The necessary constitutional revolution must start with new, free parliamentary elections, but such an election threatens not only the current regime but also the secular opposition, and could shift the center of political gravity in Egypt to their rivals, the Muslim Brotherhood.