WarSclerotic

El-Baradei to lead interim government: Voice of Russia.

Appearing before a packed rally in the central square of Cairo Sunday, the Egyptian opposition leader, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed El-Baradei announced a decision to lead an interim government that replaces the administration of President Hosni Mubarak. His appearance was extensively covered by the Al Arabiya television network.

In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians are again in the streets to demand an immediate end to the thirty-year rule of their embattled President.

Mr Mubarak has been discussing the situation with senior Generals. Reports say he issued instructions to quell the revolt.

BBC News – Egypt protests: Tension rises as jets buzz Cairo square.

Tension is mounting in the Egyptian capital Cairo after the military staged an apparent show of strength during a sixth day of anti-government protests.

Two air force jets and a helicopter repeatedly flew low over Tahrir (Liberation) Square, the main gathering point for demonstrators.

A column of tanks arrived there only to have its path blocked by protesters.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called for an “orderly transition” of power in Egypt.

“We want to see restraint, we do not want to see violence by any security forces,” she told ABC News.

The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen, in Tahrir Square, says there is a mood of defiance among the anti-government protesters there, who are accusing the military of trying to intimidate them.

Earlier, despite the presence of armoured vehicles, the protesters appeared to have free rein in the city centre, with no sign of the riot police with whom they have clashed violently in recent days.

At one point, an army officer was carried aloft on the shoulders of cheering protesters.

Egypt send tanks into Cairo square as 20,000 protesters gather – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

CAIRO – The Egyptian army on Sunday blocked entry to a central Cairo square that has been a focal point for demonstrators over the past six days of protests against the regime of President Hosni Mubarak. The move came, however, after some 20,000 people had already gathered there.

A row of advanced M1 tanks entered the central Cairo square Sunday afternoon with their cannons covered. It is unclear why such a large number of tanks were deployed. Despite this, tens of thousands of protesters have surrounded them, continuing to protest.

	Man walking past tanks blocking off a street in Cairo, Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011.
	Photo by: AP

A man in Cairo holds a sketch portraying Hosni Mubarak with a Star of David on his forehead, January 30, 2011. The caption reads: ’30 years of devastation and treason,’ referring to Israel-Egypt peaceAFP

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Two ighter aircrafts swooped low above the square, it what appeared to be yet another fruitless attempt by the military to seem in control of the chaotic city. Protesters remained undeterred by the jets, refusing to go home despite warnings.

There was no sign of police on the streets of Cairo on Sunday, although the gunfire that had been heard around the Interior Ministry headquarters on Saturday seemed to have ceased. Six people were thought to have been killed in the shooting and another 50 or more wounded.

	Exhausted demonstrators rest in Cairo, January 30, 2011, as nationwide protests against the Mubarak regime entered their sixth day.
	Photo by: AP

The Egyptian army was guarding the deserted ministry compound Sunday morning, after officials were evacuated. “We secured the Interior Ministry this morning and evacuated state security personnel. The ministry is empty,” an army officer who did not want to be named said at the site. “We’re here for as long as it takes.”

Meanwhile, Mubarak visited a military headquarters and met top commanders, state media reported Sunday, showing the president chairing a meeting even as protesters continued with their demands that he quit.

State television showed Mubarak meeting newly appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman, Defence Minister Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Chief of Staff Sami al-Anan and other commanders.

The official state news agency said Mubarak was reviewing the armed forces headquarters in charge of security operations.

Angry protesters overnight blockaded the Interior Ministry offices, breaking windows and setting the premises ablaze as police officers barricaded themselves inside the looted building.

The city had awoken to a morning of tension and uncertainty. Thousands of protesters began making their way to Tahrir Square; the soldiers offered encouragement, careful to avoid any confrontation.

One of the armored vehicles parked at the square was painted with the slogan “Fuck Mubarak.” The protesters have rejected the political changes made by an embattled Mubarak in an attempt to calm anger at his regime.

Looted stores, burnt out cars and the stench of blazing tires filled the streets of Cairo as security forces struggled to contain looters. Egyptians armed with sticks and razors had formed vigilante groups to defend their homes from looters as police disappeared from the streets on Saturday night.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis January 29, 2011, 11:56 PM (GMT+02:00)

Hamas demonstrators in Jordan

Egypt, one of the only two Arab states to sign peace with Israel, is wobbling dangerously on the brink of revolutionary change with potentially spreading fallout. This week, Israel was dismayed to find itself looking suddenly at three latently hostile fronts about to spring up around its borders:  Lebanon, which has dropped into the Iranian orbit, followed by Egypt, which is heading for terra incognita, and the Gaza Strip, where the Palestinian Hamas, offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, has gained altitude as a Middle East player from the rise of its less radical parent.

Indeed Gaza’s rulers, who are close to Iran, are puffing themselves up as a bridge between the Shiite Revolution of Iran and the Sunni-led revolution of Egypt.

In the five days of the Egyptian upheaval from Tuesday, Jan. 25, none of the Israeli Middle East experts and pundits interviewed in one broadcast after another pointed to the three most pertinent common factors of the regime changes overtaking Tunisia, Lebanon and Egypt – all in the space of days.

1. Not a single protester or slogan-bearer summoned up the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as a factor in the most revolutionary transformations to overtake the region’s countries in half a century.  The Palestinians issue was totally absent from street demonstrations and Iran’s takeover of Lebanon – giving the lie to the decades-long claim by Western decision- and opinion-makers that the Israel-Palestinian conflict was the root-cause of instability in the Arab and Muslim worlds and if it were not settled, those worlds would turn against the West. The Palestinians were plainly far from the minds of this week’s Arab demonstrators.
2.  The force most energized by the popular uprising in Egypt week turns out to be the extremist Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood – not only in Gaza and the West Bank, but also in Jordan. Its enhanced potency makes it a menace for Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the rival Fatah, and the Hashemite throne in Amman.

Flexing his new muscles, Hammam Saeed, head of the Muslim Brotherhood of Jordan and a close ally of the Hamas’s Damascus-based leader, Khaled Meshaal, said this in Amman Saturday, Jan. 29: “Egypt’s unrest will spread across the Mideast and Arabs will topple leaders allied with the United States.”
debkafile‘s Middle East experts predict that however the Egyptian uprising turns out, and in whichever direction it is pushed and pulled by the United States, it will end in a new parliamentary election and a new civilian government in which the Muslim Brotherhood will be substantially represented.
This government will not abrogate the 1979 peace treaty binding Israel and Egypt for 33 years – no Cairo administration will risk losing the substantial aid package from America – but its format will change. The intimacy of day-to-day cooperation on common security and other matters may well be disappear and Israeli political, military and intelligence figures will not longer be welcome in Cairo for consultations on common concerns as they are today.
The Palestinian leader Abbas may also find the welcome mat withdrawn, unless he is willing to succumb to Hamas and cede control of the West Bank to the Palestinian extremists.
Both set s of visitors will be replaced by Hamas leaders from Damascus, Beirut and the Gaza Strip beating a path to the Egyptian capital.
3.   Over the weekend, more than one high Iranian official was patting himself on the back over the way the Egyptian upheaval was turning out – especially the Al Qods Brigades commander, Qhassem Soleimani, whom debkafile‘s exclusive sources disclose has just been promoted to Major General, the second highest rank in Iran’s armed forces.
For 15 years as Al Qods chief, he has overseen all of Iran’s clandestine, sabotage and subversive operations in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq, managed Hizballah’s terrorist and spy cells active in West and East Africa, built up Hizballah as the leading military force on home ground in Lebanon, and developed the military prowess of the Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami in the Gaza Strip.
Soleimani feels triumphantly vindicated in his decision to build up Hamas as Hizballah No. 2 and furnish the Palestinian extremists in the Gaza Strip with the missiles and weapons systems required to make them a formidable military force.

The Al Qods Brigades chief now takes credit for Hamas’s readiness for the enhanced role it has gained from the popular uprising in Egypt.

But Israel’s strategic planners should be kicking themselves for failing to curb Iran’s military expansion into Lebanon and the Gaza Strip before it developed. The consequence of their inaction is two new long potentially hostile borders to Israel’s south.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 30, 2011, 2:26 PM (GMT+02:00)

Hamas opens Palestinian front against Egyptian regime

Gunmen of Hamas’s armed wing, Ezz e-Din al Qassam, crossed from Gaza into northern Sinai Sunday, Jan. 30 to attack Egyptian forces and push them back. They acted on orders from Hamas’ parent organization, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, confirmed by its bosses in Damascus, to open a second, Palestinian front against the Mubarak regime. The Muslim Brotherhood is therefore more active in the uprising than it would appear.

debkafile‘s military sources report that Hamas gunmen went straight into battle with Egyptian Interior Ministry special forces (CFF) in the southern Egyptian-controlled section of the border town of Rafah and the Sinai port of El Arish. Saturday, Bedouin tribesmen and local Palestinians used the mayhem in Cairo to clash with Egyptian forces at both northern Sinai key points and ransack their gun stores.

Sunday, Hamas terrorists aim to follow this up by pushing Egyptian forces out of the northern and central regions of the peninsula and so bring Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip under Palestinian control. Hamas would then be able to break out of the Egyptian blockade of the enclave and restore its smuggling routes in full. Officials in Gaza City confirmed Sunday that Hamas’s most notorious smuggling experts, including Muhammad Shaar, had broken out of the El Arish jail Saturday and were heading for Gaza City.
Our military sources further report that the Multinational Force & Observers (MFO), most of whose members are Americans and Canadians, are on maximum alert at their northern Sinai base, while they wait for US military transports to evacuate them to US bases in Europe.

This force was deployed in Sinai in 1981 for peacekeeping responsibilities and the supervision of the security provisions of the 1979 Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel under which the peninsula was demilitarized except for Egyptian police. Ending the MFO’s mission in Sinai after thirty years knocks down a key pillar propping up the treaty peace between Egypt and Israel.

Early Sunday, the Egyptian army quietly began transferring armored reinforcements including tanks through the tunnels under the Suez from Egypt proper eastward to northern Sinai in effort to drive the Hamas forces back.  The Egyptian troop presence in Sinai, which violates the terms of the peace treaty, has not been mentioned by either of the peace partners. Our Jerusalem sources report the Netanyahu government may have tacitly approved it.

Hamas’ Gaza leaders do not seem to fear Israel will resort to military or even air action to interfere with their incursion of Sinai, although it brings their armed units within easy reach of the long Egyptian border with Israel.
In central Cairo, thousands of protesters gathered Sunday morning, some having camped there overnight in defiance of the curfew. Their chants were different in two important senses from the slogans dominating the first five days of their protest. Now they are calling for both President Hosni Mubarak and his newly-appointed Vice President Gen. Omar Suleiman to resign, branding them “American agents.” Secondly, Islamic elements are more conspicuous among the crowd collecting in central Cairo Sunday.

Thousands of political prisoners, Islamic extremists and criminals are on the loose having reportedly escaped jails in the Cairo area.

The United States is preparing to evacuate citizens. The Embassy in Cairo advised all Americans to consider leaving the country as soon as possible. Ankara is sending planes to carry Turkish citizens out of the country. Saturday, the Israeli airline El Al sent a special flight to Cairo for families of embassy staff. The diplomats remain in place.
In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu updated the weekly cabinet session on his conversations overnight with President Barak Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the Egyptian crisis.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

SOLDIERS HOLD BACK | HeraldTribune.com.

PROTESTS: Some in army seem to side with growing opposition to Mubarak

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US covertly aided Egyptian protest leaders for regime change, secret December 2008 WikiLeaks cable reveals | Asian Tribune.

United States Ambassador to Egypt Margaret Scorby

The United States has been covertly preparing a regime change in Egypt for the last two years secretly assisting the leaders who were preparing a blueprint to bring representative government to Egypt now emerged as leaders or organizers of the mass uprising that the world is witnessing today.

The US State Department officials, US Congressmen and their immediate staff were engaged in having discussions with the Egyptian rebel leaders on US soil. The US embassy in Cairo was instrumental in organizing a summit in New York in 2008 to meet one of the young Egyptian activists. On his return to Cairo this activist was detained by the Egyptian intelligence unit.

All these and more are now revealed in a classified diplomatic cable sent from the American embassy in Cairo to Washington, dated 30 December 2008 disclosed by WikiLeaks which the Asian Tribune will place before its readers.

This young Egyptian activist was arrested and detained in this week’s uprising in Cairo, it has been revealed.

The name of this young Egyptian leader is withheld for obvious reasons. The WikiLeaks released Cairo US embassy cable is very clear that the United States government was overtly supporting the Mubarak regime, while covertly endeavoring to undermine it and replace it with a representative government.

Sensing some eruption in the future against the autocratic Mubarak regime and to safeguard U.S. interests in the region, the U.S. was forced, in the interest of its national security, to find an alternative, this diplomatic cable very clearly depicts the grand design of the super power.

A plan concocted by the Egyptian dissident groups to remove Hosni Mubarak from power before the scheduled September 2011 presidential election and replace his rule with a representative democratic government was relayed to Washington through the embassy in Cairo.

Margaret Scobey, the US Ambassador in Cairo, said in the memo to the US Secretary of State, in that she questioned the likelihood that such an action would happen.

Other cables revealed, however, the US diplomats had sought out the opposition groups, one of whose members attended a youth summit in Washington organized by the State Department.

This week’s protests in Egypt were instigated by a group of young, educated Egyptians known as the “April 6 youth movement,” which has a presence on the social network site Facebook.

The Scobey diplomatic memo was labeled “April 6 activist on his US visit and regime change in Egypt.”

The Asian Tribune gives here the full text of the classified diplomatic cable sent from the Cairo US embassy to Washington State Department dated 30 December 2008.

Here is the secret document sent from the US Embassy in Cairo to Washington disclosing the extent of American support for the protesters behind the Egypt uprising.

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 CAIRO 002572 SIPDIS FOR NEA/ELA, R, S/P
AND H NSC FOR PASCUAL AND KUTCHA-HELBLING E.O. 12958: DECL:
12/30/2028 TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, KDEM, EG SUBJECT: APRIL 6 ACTIVIST ON HIS U.S. VISIT AND REGIME CHANGE IN EGYPT REF:

A. CAIRO 2462 B.

CAIRO 2454 C. CAIRO 2431 Classified By: ECPO A/Mincouns Catherine Hill-Herndon for reason 1.4 (d ). 1. (C) Summary and comment:

On December 23, April 6 activist xxxxxxxxxxxx expressed satisfaction with his participation in the December 3-5 \”Alliance of Youth Movements Summit,\” and with his subsequent meetings with USG officials, on Capitol Hill, and with think tanks. He described how State Security (SSIS) detained him at the Cairo airport upon his return and confiscated his notes for his summit presentation calling for democratic change in Egypt, and his schedule for his Congressional meetings. xxxxxxxxxxxx contended that the GOE will never undertake significant reform, and therefore, Egyptians need to replace the current regime with a parliamentary democracy. He alleged that several opposition parties and movements have accepted an unwritten plan for democratic transition by 2011; we are doubtful of this claim. xxxxxxxxxxxx said that although SSIS recently released two April 6 activists, it also arrested three additional group members. We have pressed the MFA for the release of these April 6 activists. April 6’s stated goal of replacing the current regime with a parliamentary democracy prior to the 2011 presidential elections is highly unrealistic, and is not supported by the mainstream opposition. End summary and comment. —————————- Satisfaction with the Summit —————————-

2. (C) xxxxxxxxxxxx expressed satisfaction with the December 3-5 \”Alliance of Youth Movements Summit\” in New York, noting that he was able to meet activists from other countries and outline his movement’s goals for democratic change in Egypt. He told us that the other activists at the summit were very supportive, and that some even offered to hold public demonstrations in support of Egyptian democracy in their countries, with xxxxxxxxxxxx as an invited guest. xxxxxxxxxxxxsaid he discussed with the other activists how April 6 members could more effectively evade harassment and surveillance from SSIS with technical upgrades, such as consistently alternating computer \”simcards.\” However, xxxxxxxxxxxx lamented to us that because most April 6 members do not own computers, this tactic would be impossible to implement. xxxxxxxxxxxx was appreciative of the successful efforts by the Department and the summit organizers to protect his identity at the summit, and told us that his name was never mentioned publicly. ——————- A Cold Welcome Home ——————-

3. (S) xxxxxxxxxxxx told us that SSIS detained and searched him at the Cairo Airport on December 18 upon his return from the U.S. According to xxxxxxxxxxxx, SSIS found and confiscated two documents in his luggage: notes for his presentation at the summit that described April 6’s demands for democratic transition in Egypt, and a schedule of his Capitol Hill meetings. xxxxxxxxxxxx described how the SSIS officer told him that State Security is compiling a file on him, and that the officer’s superiors instructed him to file a report on xxxxxxxxxxxx most recent activities. ——————————————— ———- Washington Meetings and April 6 Ideas for Regime Change ——————————————– ———

– 4. (C) Xxxxxxxxxxxx described his Washington appointments as positive, saying that on the Hill he met with xxxxxxxxxxxx, a variety of House staff members, including from the offices of xxxxxxxxxxxx and xxxxxxxxxxxx), and with two Senate staffers. xxxxxxxxxxxx also noted that he met with several think tank members. xxxxxxxxxxxx said that xxxxxxxxxxxx’s office invited him to speak at a late January Congressional hearing on House Resolution 1303 regarding religious and political freedom in Egypt. xxxxxxxxxxxx told us he is interested in attending, but conceded he is unsure whether he will have the funds to make the trip. He indicated to us that he has not been focusing on his work as a \”fixer\” for journalists, due to his preoccupation with his U.S. trip.

5. (C) xxxxxxxxxxxx described how he tried to convince his Washington interlocutors that the USG should pressure the GOE to implement significant reforms by threatening to reveal CAIRO 00002572 002 OF 002 information about GOE officials’ alleged \”illegal\” off-shore bank accounts. He hoped that the U.S. and the international community would freeze these bank accounts, like the accounts of Zimbabwean President Mugabe’s confidantes. xxxxxxxxxxxx said he wants to convince the USG that Mubarak is worse than Mugabe and that the GOE will never accept democratic reform. xxxxxxxxxxxx asserted that Mubarak derives his legitimacy from U.S. support, and therefore charged the U.S. with \”being responsible\” for Mubarak’s \”crimes.\” He accused NGOs working on political and economic reform of living in a \”fantasy world,\” and not recognizing that Mubarak — \”the head of the snake\” — must step aside to enable democracy to take root.

6. (C) xxxxxxxxxxxx claimed that several opposition forces — including the Wafd, Nasserite, Karama and Tagammu parties, and the Muslim Brotherhood, Kifaya, and Revolutionary Socialist movements — have agreed to support an unwritten plan for a transition to a parliamentary democracy, involving a weakened presidency and an empowered prime minister and parliament, before the scheduled 2011 presidential elections (ref C). According to xxxxxxxxxxxx, the opposition is interested in receiving support from the army and the police for a transitional government prior to the 2011 elections. xxxxxxxxxxxx asserted that this plan is so sensitive it cannot be written down. (Comment: We have no information to corroborate that these parties and movements have agreed to the unrealistic plan xxxxxxxxxxxxhas outlined. Per ref C,xxxxxxxxxxxx previously told us that this plan was publicly available on the internet. End comment.)

7. (C) xxxxxxxxxxxx said that the GOE has recently been cracking down on the April 6 movement by arresting its members. xxxxxxxxxxxx noted that although SSIS had released xxxxxxxxxxxx and xxxxxxxxxxxx \”in the past few days,\” it had arrested three other members. (Note: On December 14, we pressed the MFA for the release of xxxxxxxxxxxx and xxxxxxxxxxxx,and on December 28 we asked the MFA for the GOE to release the additional three activists. End note.) xxxxxxxxxxxx conceded that April 6 has no feasible plans for future activities.

The group would like to call for another strike on April 6, 2009, but realizes this would be \”impossible\” due to SSIS interference, xxxxxxxxxxxxsaid. He lamented that the GOE has driven the group’s leadership underground, and that one of its leaders, xxxxxxxxxxxx, has been in hiding for the past week.

8. (C) Comment: xxxxxxxxxxxx offered no roadmap of concrete steps toward April 6’s highly unrealistic goal of replacing the current regime with a parliamentary democracy prior to the 2011 presidential elections. Most opposition parties and independent NGOs work toward achieving tangible, incremental reform within the current political context, even if they may be pessimistic about their chances of success. xxxxxxxxxxxx wholesale rejection of such an approach places him outside this mainstream of opposition politicians and activists.

Siddiqui: Time to cut Mideast dictators loose – thestar.com.

By Haroon Siddiqui Editorial Page

What’s happening in Egypt and across the Middle East is unprecedented. Scenes like this we have not seen since the 1979 revolution in Iran. Equally clear is that the American-led Western model of dealing with the Arab world is broken.

Talking democracy and propping up dictatorships is no longer sustainable. Nor is Washington’s tightrope walk, “standing by” the hated Hosni Mubarak regime while talking up the freedom of speech and assembly of Egyptians. Such phony attempts at identifying with the protesters draw the mocking response: Where have you been for 30 years?

Also laid bare are the Orwellian phrases used by Western, especially North American, governments and the media to hide the truth.

The despotic regimes in our camp have been marketed as “stable,” “moderate” and “modern,” which have been battling antediluvian extremists, anti-American and anti-Israel “Islamists” and “terrorists.”

Some regimes have indeed had the stability of the graveyard. Even that’s no longer assured.

There’s nothing “moderate” about regimes that treat their citizens no differently than Iran. Hosni Mubarak has been no less a tyrant than Baby Doc or Papa Duvalier. Or Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia. Or Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen. Our friends, all.

There’s nothing “modern” about rulers who are corrupt to the core, preside over vast nepotistic networks and provide little or no transparency to finances or governance.

What of the hordes we are warned about and against whom our allies were ostensibly the buffer?

From Tunisia to Yemen, Algeria to Egypt, they have the same demands — oust the despots and the thieves; end the oppression; give people basic freedoms and the basics of life so some don’t have to self-immolate themselves in protest.

The crowds in Cairo chant, “Silmiyah, Silmiyah” (peaceful, peaceful), telling each other not to give the security thugs the excuse to crack open some more skulls.

They all want what we want — freedom, democracy, equality, equal economic opportunity, dignity.

And if many among them hate us, it’s not because they hate our values but because we thwart their quest for our values. It’s our gas canisters, water cannons, guns and bullets that are being used on them.

They are not the crazy bearded mullahs who were said to be waiting in the wings. They are instead a diverse lot, led mostly by young, educated, secular democratic activists of the emerging civil societies empowered by the Internet and social media.

They are not shouting for the sharia but rather chanting: “The crescent and the cross against torture and murder;” “Muslims and Christians, we all demand change.”

What should the West do?

Make a clean break. Cut the dictators loose. Make an unflinching commitment to democracy and human rights. Anything less would smack of George W. Bush’s “freedom agenda,” which was never taken seriously either by the rulers or the ruled in the Middle East.

Read the riot act to Mubarak: No more crackdowns on the protesters. No mass arrests. No banning of rallies. No censorship. End the 1981 Emergency Rule that allows de facto martial law. No more fraudulant, fixed elections.

Clear space for a fair and free presidential election this fall, monitored by international observers. Don’t put roadblocks in the way of opposition candidates, such as Mohamed ElBaradei.

Failing that, the U.S. will withhold its $2 billion a year military and civilian aid.

Adopt similar approaches to Yemen, Algeria and others. But start with Egypt.

As important as Egypt is — the largest Arab nation and the first to have signed a peace treaty with Israel — it no longer wields the regional influence it once did. The emerging players are democratic Turkey and the oil-rich benevolent monarchies of Qatar and the U.A.E.

Egypt also is not the bulwark against Syria, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah it is portrayed to be — the proof being that they are stronger than before. Saudi Arabia has far more clout in Lebanon and Syria than Egypt does.

But making a clean break with the regime in Cairo would send the right signal to the region and help usher in a democratic era that ultimately will be the best guarantor of stability, security and peace for Arabs and non-Arabs alike.