Egypt's Uprising.

Over the past eight days the people of Egypt have taken to the streets calling for the resignation of the President, Hosni Mubarak. Although in terms of overthrowing a dictator eight days is barely the blink of an eye the Egyptian protesters have already made great progress.

When Mubarak started this uprising he saw it as a way of guaranteeing that his son, Gamal would take over as President in September. About 30 seconds into the process Mubarak discovered that there wouldn't be any support for this so he set about making sure that he could remain as President. By January 31st even this looked like it wouldn't be possible as the Egyptian army announced that they would be tolerating further protests and the vice-President, Omar Suleiman started making statements that sounded like his audition to the international community for the role of President of Egypt.

With obvious cracks starting to form at the heart of the Egyptian establishment on February 1st Mubarak was forced to make a rambling speech on state television in which he announced that he would be standing down as President in September and mumbled something about amending the constitution to bring in Presidential term limits. Although for all 30 years of Mubarak's rule Egypt has been in a state of emergency that has suspended the constitution this was clearly enough for the Egyptian army who, today (2/2), ordered the protesters to leave the streets in what can only be described as threatening terms.

This is a major problem because the protesters are past the point of no return. If they leave the streets now the army will also leave the streets and be replaced by the police. Based on how they've behaved in the past the Egyptian police will now spend the next seven months hunting down, kidnapping, raping, torturing and killing the protesters leading to the massive loss of life seen after the failed uprisings in Iran and Burma. With the opposition destroyed there will be nothing to stop Mubarak going back on his word and continuing as President come September.

It would be a much better idea then if the protesters stayed on the streets and forced Mubarak to stand down immediately and the Egyptian army took control of the country until September. Then a civilised election, where the peace treaty with Israel and the status of the Suez Canal are sacrosanct, can be held away from the fire and fury of insurrection.