Blue Crab Boulevard

And finally, 24 hours late, the military seizes control of Egypt, forcing Mubarak (and apparently his new vice president, as well) to step aside.

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt resigned his post and turned over all power to the military on Friday, ending his nearly 30 years of autocratic rule and bowing to a historic popular uprising that has transformed politics in Egypt and around the Arab world.

The streets of Cairo exploded in shouts of “God is Great” moments after Mr. Mubarak’s vice president and longtime intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, announced during evening prayers that Mr. Mubarak had passed all authority to a council of military leaders.

I rather suspect that the protesters will be longing for the good old days of Hosni before long. Let’s hope I’m wrong.

Question: Was this actually a deft play by the military to deaden opposition to them stepping in? In other words, was Mubarak’s speech yesterday – which defied all the rumors circulating before hand, with him retaining his title – actually designed to generate public support for the military takeover? Notice that today there are no chants of “civil, not military”.

Color me suspicious.

Link via Memeorandum

Be careful what you wish for. Egypt appears to be under control of its military today.

Thousands of protesters have gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square awaiting word on whether Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will stay in office amid conflicting reports as he is expected to address the nation Thursday evening.

A senior Egyptian official confirms to Fox News that President Hosni Mubarak will step down shortly and transfer authority to the Egyptian Higher Council of the Armed Forces — but Egypt’s information minister tells Reuters that “the president is definitely not going to step down.”

The group is comprised of the minister of defense, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi – who stands atop the military hierarchy – along with the military’s chief of staff, the chief of operations, and commanders of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Air Defenses.

In a statement read on Egyptian television, a spokesman reportedly said, “Stemming from the armed forces’ responsibility and committing to the protection of the people, safeguarding their interest and security, and keen on the safety of the homeland, the citizens and the achievements of the great Egyptian people, and asserting the legitimate rights of the people, the Higher Council of the Armed Forces convened today, Thursday, Feb. 10, 2011, to deliberate on the latest developments of the situation and decided to remain in continuous session to discuss what measures and arrangements could be taken to safeguard the homeland and its achievements, and the aspirations of the great Egyptian people.”

My guess is that the military is about to crack down – hard – on the protests. The result of the fall of Mubarak will not be anything like what the protesters expected. Nothing at all.

And I’m pretty sure the Obama administration just blew it, big time. We have probably lost all or most influence with the Egyptians, both in and out of power.

UPDATE: And all hell is about to break loose. In a surprise move, Mubarak is NOT stepping down.

Here are the latest developments, as confirmed by CNN, on the uprising in Egypt. Throngs of demonstrators have taken to the streets of Egypt’s major cities to demand an end to President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule, prompting the government to deploy the military to deal with civil unrest for the first time in a generation. Check out our full coverage and the latest tweets from CNN correspondents on the ground.

[Update 12:40 p.m. in Cairo, 5:40 p.m. ET President Hosni Mubarak has transfered all effective powers of the presidency to Vice President Omar Suleiman, making Suleiman the de-facto president of Egypt, the Egyptian Ambassador to the United States said.

"The president did indicate very clearly he was transferring all his presidential authority to the vice president," Sameh Shoukry told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "President Mubarak has transferred the powers of the presidency to his vice president, who will now undertake all authority as president."

That makes Suleiman the head of the military, according to Shoukry, attributing the information to the Egyptian government.

[Update 12:25 p.m. in Cairo, 5:25 p.m. ET] CNN’s Ivan Watson says you need only look at the network of tents and a makeshift wooden shelter erected in the middle of Tahrir Square for evidence of what people are planning to do next: “These people are not going. ‘When he leaves, we leave.’ This is just the beginning.”

All indications earlier pointed to the military stepping in. Now that may still happen, but in a much more harsh way than even I anticipated. Yes, Mubarak essentially gave up all his powers to the new VP – but the VP is even more a product of the military than Mubarak is.

Last link via Memeorandum

David Warren:

For 30 years since, Hosni Mubarak has tried to advance his country in the direction Sadat pointed, while fully aware that he was straddling a volcano. Those who judge Mubarak by the standards of western constitutional democracies must tinge every observation of Egypt with fantasy.

Mubarak’s greatest difficulty has been securing reforms which have included the gradual replacement of incompetent (and usually army-managed) state enterprises with free markets, and the “normalization” of relations with Israel, from behind a rhetorical cover. His very survival in office has been an extraordinary accomplishment, to which Egypt owes what peace and prosperity it has had.

There’s a lot more, please go read it. Yearning for a constitutional democracy in Egypt is all well and good, but it really is important to not tinge reality with wishes. I’ve mentioned that I am not a fan of Mubarak’s style of rule – but I also do not want the Muslim Brotherhood to take his place.

They are not harmless, as far too many Western apologists and talking heads are insisting.

Far too many of the people offering “expert” commentary on the situation in Egypt could not even locate said nation on a labeled map. Far too many of the people offering their “expertise” are projecting their own values onto others who may or may not actually share those values. (Most do not, I’d wager.)

They are largely ignoring the very real threat of the Muslim Brotherhood. They are completely missing the cheerleading by Iran for the uprising.

That cheerleading alone should make people think hard about what is really going on in Egypt.

As I said in the first post I made about the situation in Egypt “I don’t know of anything good to say about Mubarak, other than he has kept peace with Israel for all these years.”

I fear that will not continue for long.

Egypt’s future is being decided right now by a few power brokers:

It is a safe guess, though, that while the media are in Tahrir Square boosting “revolution,” and commenting that nothing will ever be the same again, the future is being settled over their heads by the half dozen power brokers who count. The media always manage to select protesters who say in good English that they are staying in the square until they are victorious and Mubarak has gone. These interviews are really promotions of the reporter’s own political prejudices.  Remember the book by Ed Behr making a mockery of slanting the news in this sort of crisis with the title Anyone Here Been Raped and Speaks English?

Yeah, pretty much what I suspected would be the outcome. The question is, how much influence did the Muslim Brotherhood just get? The other big question is how much will the army take before it decides to step in and take over entirely. Note the importance of the last two sentences in the quote. This tendency has been on blatant display from every media outlet. UPDATE: And BINGO! The fix is in

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Egypt’s popular uprising against Hosni Mubarak faltered on Sunday as opposition leaders including the Muslim Brotherhood embarked on negotiations and the ranks of street protestors was reduced by the arrest of key ringleaders.

The power brokers have spoken. The mob’s usefulness is at an end.