It looks like the Egyptian President is going to throw in the towel.
Up until now, I had lived in the vague hope that a former Israeli PM would make a comeback, and the current US President would get them to sign up some more Camp David Peace Accords.
UPDATE. According to the news, he has changed his mind and is hanging on. He got a barracking from the crowd and to prevent violence escalating, he has recalled the Army to their barracks.
Thursday 10 February 2011
A bit of a shame really.
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10 comments:
It's a wonder he doesn't get assassinated.
Calling the army back to barracks is simply Uncle Hosni showing the generals he is still in control.
At least for now.
Remember it's darkest just before it goes pitch black!!
JH, that's a risk with which despots have to live. Most of them don't get assassinated, as it happens.
W, I made up that bit about recalling the army.
I still don't undertand how an experienced politician and all round despot kleptophile like Mubarak could imagine that appointing his torturer in chief Omar Suleiman as the new VP could possibly placate the opposition.
Yet again we see the wisdom in the US Constitution. True though it is that Presidential term limits were only introduced in 1951, the potential danger of having a supreme political head gaining excessive power over time is recognised by the 22nd Amendment.
So often the most authoritarian dictators only get rolling after about a decade in office. The US Constitution imposes an absolute limit of ten years and, more commonly, a limit of eight years. It simply isn't long enough for the grossest excesses of power to be accumulated.
B, that puzzles just about everybody.
TFB, this chap turned completely corrupt after only three. Don't they all practise on the way up?
B, don't all dictators end up living in a parellel universe, like Ceausescu?
Now he's gone, this doesn't make for encouraging reading. It certainly wasn't the impression I was getting from the BBC.
Oh well. Sell your Centamin shares........ :-)
B, we all live in our own little parallel universes, to be honest, it's just that politicians tend to live in parallel realities where not even the laws of physics apply.
FT, no doubt the Islamists will cash in, just like in Iran in 1979, they're very good at doing that. I suppose it's surprising that Iraq is still as secular as it is.
Hmm. The fact that a majority of people support barbaric punishments doesn't mean they're likely to be enacted, of course (see: the UK).
(I'm also amazed that only 81% had a negative view of the US. I suppose a fifth of Poles in 1989 probably still had a positive view of the Soviet Union...)
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