the ousted Husni Mubarak, replaced by a military junta led by Field Marshall Mohammed Tantawi.
just proclaimed it would support the hated Israeli-Egyptian peace deal signed by Anwar Sadat, typical post-coup talk, the junta says elections will be held sometime in the future.
Many Egyptians are still euphoric over the ouster of Gen. Mubarak, known to one and all as "pharaoh."
the people who have taken over the regime are the very same generals, policemen and tycoons who ran it under Mubarak.
The dreaded secret police, by Gen. Omar Suleiman, Marshall Tantawi, chief of staff Lieutenant General Enan and Ahmed Shafik, also seen as America’s men on the Nile. Gen. Omer Suleiman was Mubarak’s US-anointed successor.
spend more time managing their business affairs than military matters.
Few among Egypt’s top brass want to end their gravy train by changing the status quo.
The US has paid Egypt’s military $1.4 billion annually since 1979 not to confront Israel,
it under US supervision whose primary function was to control the population and protect the US-backed regime. The military’s stocks of munitions and spare parts for its US arms were kept to a bare minimum to ensure Israel.
So far, a game of musical chairs. The United States still dominates Egypt’s military, policy, and economy. Washington provides wheat without which Egypt cannot feed itself.
Israel still exercises powerful influence over Egypt An angry word from Jerusalem, and Egypt’s wheat could be cut off. Egyptian and Israeli intelligence are as entwined as was Israel’s Mossad with the Iranian Savak secret police.
To date, the revolt on the Nile has not even produced a Kerensky, never mind a Lenin.
If Egyptians feel cheated by the change of power in Cairo, as many will, and violent demonstrations begin, what will happen if the junta orders a battalion commanded by a colonel to open fire on protesters?
The first young officer who refuses and orders his men to join the demonstrators could become Egypt’s new hero. Nasser’s ghost haunts Cairo.
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