The Egyptian authorities have missed the train of reforms, and it is the case of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali's government before them. Now, President Hosni Mubarak can only resort to boundless power and oppression to maintain his authority, knowing that if he does so, it would be as though he was pushing himself toward the brink of the abyss. Reforms, regardless of their depth and scope, are no longer enough. Indeed, the course adopted by the rule during the last thirty years can be summarized by the instatement of stalemate at the level of foreign, internal and economic policies. Moreover, it was characterized by the refusal to deal with the sensitive issues such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, the distribution of national wealth, the transformation of the ruling party into a bloc for those benefitting from the privileges of the regime, the dissemination of the consumption facet over the economy and the position toward the Islamization of the community, with all that these factors carried in terms of repercussions on the values, the culture and the general behavior. This approach caused massive losses in all various aspects of life. Egypt's status around the world and among the Arab countries thus retreated, after it turned out that the mediation role that Cairo wanted to play between Israel and the Arabs required capabilities and competences which the Egyptian authorities did not enjoy. Moreover, Egyptian economy became exposed to harsh external transformations, due to its exposure to financial markets, without having any actual production force. In the meantime, social polarization deepened in parallel to the undermining of the tools of unionist, partisan and media expression. Thus, mini-states, which were never taken into consideration by anyone a few years back, became capable of defying the Egyptian role on many arenas that Egypt had monopolized. For a few months now, the tensions have been escalating. Indeed, the legislative elections were held in November in light of the obstinacy of the ruling party, as well as the political and security authorities to limit the scope of political diversity in parliament. The Alexandria church explosion then occurred and raised numerous questions in regard to the meaning of national unity and the unison of the “two components of the nation.” But before and after these two developments, many events occurred, such as the killing of young man Khaled Said among other incidents, while the regime seemed unable to adopt any measures that would defuse the tensions and appease the unrest on a street that does not lack elements of disturbance and turmoil. What the events seen during the last three days revealed is that the future of the rule has exited the family of the current president, and will go to whoever can prove capable of containing or terrorizing the street. The candidates prone to play that role are very few and are the army commanders. Indeed, the lesson that can be drawn from the Tunisia events a few weeks back, from Eastern Europe's revolutions two decades ago and from the Iranian revolution at the end of the seventies, is that the security bodies can erect and protect the wall of fear in the ranks of the citizens. As for the collapse of the psychological wall, whether in Tehran, Berlin or Sidi Bouzid, the police are much too weak to reconstruct it. Therefore, the army is the only side that can control the situation, at a time when the security bodies are seeking exits for their elements. On the short run however, we can draw two conclusions. The first is that the Egyptian situation will never return to its previous state of excessive tranquility, while the second is that Mubarak must seriously look into the best way to ensure a calm exit from power before the situations gets out of hand. Until a few years ago, the Egyptians were willing to accept a few economic reforms that would have improved their living conditions, in exchange for the relinquishing of many of their political rights. But the authority's lethal mistake is that it believed it could exceed its share in this trade-off, continue depriving the citizens of their freedoms and livelihood, and on top of it all seek the perpetuation of this policy through the bequeathal of power.
